


Worst Behavior (Nothing was the Same)

by consciousness_streaming



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Angst, BRIT Awards, Blowjobs, Getting Together, Grammy Awards, Hate Sex, M/M, No Babies, broken up band, song writer zayn, started writing this in 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-11-05 23:31:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11023869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consciousness_streaming/pseuds/consciousness_streaming
Summary: "Harry runs a frustrated hand through his long locks, barely visible in this creaky hallway, 'You’ve never even told us what this is all about, why you and Liam, your best mate in the entire world, broke the band apart with one fight. We’ve respected your privacy, Zayn, but it’s been two years. We either deserve to know, or you need to move on. It’s not healthy how much you’re still holding onto this hatred for him.'Zayn laughs a disturbing sounding laugh. He hasn’t talked about this in twenty-two months and he’s not about to start now, 'Hatred’s only part of it. Let’s just say I’ve never been more disappointed in someone in my life than Liam Payne.'”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this in 2014, before Zayn left the band, before all these babies, before Cheryl, before everything went to hell. This has been 80% finished for years and I'd like to think I'm a person who finishes her projects, even if it takes me years sometimes and literally no one was waiting for this fic or even had any idea I was writing it. 
> 
> So, here you go. I've got some minor editing to do later in the fic, but it's finished and it will be up in the next couple of days/weeks. Please ignore any time line inconsistencies.
> 
> Title is from Drake's album... like three albums ago

 

Harry’s voice comes garbling out of the speaker in the swampy studio and Zayn shakes his head to his friend through the glass.

“Try one more time, mate, I think I fixed it,” he says, pushing lightly on the red button that allows Harry to hear him from inside the recording booth. At least he found that button, he’s been half guessing on the other thousand knobs on this sound board.

He sees Harry roll his eyes good-naturedly, “Are you sure you’ve done this before, Zayn?” This time it sounds a bit more normal.

If Zayn didn’t know Harry as well as he did, he might be insulted. He might choose to be insulted anyway, “Well, I’m not used to such shit equipment, then am I? I’ve been recording in me mum’s garage for the last two years,” he says back, pushing that red button just a tad harder than necessary.

A blonde head trembles in the corner of his eye, and he purposefully ignores Niall’s poorly suppressed laughter. Then again, Niall’s always laughing, so Zayn’s used to not paying it any mind. He’s just ambient noise at this point.

“Niall, you gonna just sit there, or are you going to help him? C’mon, lads, I need Zayn’s touch for this song, but if you aren’t going to take it serious—“

“Serious,” Niall mimics, standing up to laugh at Harry through the glass, “serious, he says. Of course we’re not going to take it bloody serious, you arse. We have at least ten more goes before the bit gets old.”

Zayn sighs, still unused to being on this side of the glass even after two years, well twenty-two months, of no longer being in One Direction. “I’m not actually doing a bit, you know. This is me, seriously struggling here, and you’re being extremely unhelpful.”

“How the hell have you become the most popular song writer?” Niall asks with his eyes incredulous, “I mean seriously, you look like a little fawn just learning to walk over here. And I’ve seen one o’ those in person, so I know what I’m looking at here.”

Demos for song writing don’t need professional level producing, just the bare bones of the song, so his Macbook has been doing the job just fine so far.

“Mate, are you trying to convince me you’re Snow White? Because I know some things that have gone down, and most of the time it was you,” Zayn says without looking up from the wobbly volume knob. Niall shrugs like _what can you do_ and Zayn holds back another sigh.

Harry laughs into the microphone and Zayn’s glad he happened to be recording at that moment. He’ll find a spot to sneak in Harry’s giggle later. It’s pretty precious and the world will eat it up.

“C’mon, now, I think I’ve got it,” Zayn motions through the glass to Harry to get ready for another go. He feels a drop of sweat slick down his spine below his Henley. It’s so bloody hot in here.

This time, Harry nails the bridge and at the end of the take, both Zayn and Niall are dramatically applauding. Niall pretends to wipe tears from his cheeks and Harry takes a deep, sarcastic bow.

“That was killer, mate,” Niall says to Harry, making sure to push the red button over Zayn’s shoulder so he can hear them. Zayn smiles so hard it’s hurting his cheeks. There’s nothing like hearing your song through to completion, a little part of a melody he heard in his mind watching _Transformers_ and a quick jot of his pen at his local Starbucks and suddenly Harry’s recorded it and it’s likely to be a smash hit. If anything positive at all has come out of the indefinite hiatus of One Direction, it’s having the time and learning to love the creative process of song-writing, no feeling quite like it but a performance. Writing under his pseudonym, Donald K. Johnson, and wanting to keep it completely secret, keeps him from having any say in the final product. He values his secrecy above the final cut, the content of his songs would make him too vulnerable to the public. Zayn hasn’t gotten any less private at twenty-four. So it’s especially refreshing to carry a project through to completion with people who know his secret.

Usually he’s stuck with an _almost_ , the saddest word in the English language. The song was _almost_ what he envisioned lying on his bed in early March and seeing the last snowfall of the year. The song was _almost_ as emotionally wrecking as when he sang it in the shower, thinking of _him_. The song is _almost_ perfect.

Finally, _finally,_ Zayn gets to do it right. He’ll have to write and produce more songs for Harry if this is the end result.

Zayn’s flying on a high when Niall goes and ruins it with one sentence.

“Can’t wait for the Big Payno remix, Haz,” he says with a finger still on the red button. As soon as the words register in his mind, Zayn’s mood crashes through the floor and ends in the basement.

Niall must see the smile drop off of Harry’s face, because he turns to look at Zayn and then his eyes flood with guilt, “I’m sorry, Zayn, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to mention—“

“It’s fine,” Zayn says, abruptly deciding this is the perfect time to gather his notebooks and pens. Fuck, he needs a cigarette.

“It’s not fine,” Niall says, grabbing Zayn’s arm. “I shouldn’t have mentioned him. Of course he won’t do a remix of your song. ‘Course not. Right Harry?”

Zayn looks up from his gel pens, surprised to see Harry in the little booth with them now and not on the other side of the glass like the exhibit the world treats him as, “I know the rules, Zayn. He won’t know you wrote and produced this song for me and he definitely won’t do a remix for it. And just the same, you won’t get to hear the songs he’s written and produced for me until my album drops.”

“But I want to hear your record,” Zayn whines. Liam’s been busy, Zayn knows objectively. One C.D. is already out, with another one in the works, from what he’s heard the lads slip. Bloody Liam still managed to find time to co-write and produce a track for Harry’s new album.

“And I want you to hear it,” Harry says back, a hint of impatience coloring his voice, not for the first time, “But I’m respecting your rules, so you can respect mine.”

Zayn’s about to tell him that’s fine, but stupid, when Niall starts talking instead, “Zayn, mate, I don’t want to like freak you out or anything. But you were _smiling,_ like actually smiling for a bit there. You realize that we haven’t seen you smile at all in months, right?”

Any good feeling left in Zayn’s body after discussing _him_ flees pretty quickly. He scratches at his hip with black heart tattoo and then throws his notebooks and pens into the backpack he brought with him. Clearly, it’s time to go. The song is recorded and perfect and now things are getting too serious. Zayn cannot handle this right now.

“Niall!” Harry hisses as Zayn finishes zipping the backpack, “we said we weren’t going to mention anything.”

Oh, great so they discussed how they were going to handle him now? Like he’s some kind of basket case and they have to plan outings for him and tip toe around his feelings. Perfect.

He takes one last look at the cramped, boiling studio, and wonders how anyone gets anything recorded here. He nearly trips over a tangle of cords under his feet – one red cord battles about twelve thick black cords and Zayn feels a kinship for an inanimate object in those brief seconds.

“You know,” Zayn says, snapping out of it and fishing his car keys out of his pocket, “this was fun until the last five minutes give or take. Thanks for mentioning my crippling depression and my arch nemesis all in one breath, Nialler. Cheers, lads.” He chucks up a half-hearted peace sign and crashes through the door into the dark hallway.

“Zayn, wait!” he hears Harry behind him, strolling with those giraffe legs to catch up to him. “We didn’t mean… we weren’t trying to—“

Zayn sighs and slows down, his hand on the front door knob, ready to bolt, “I know you lads mean well. Trust me, I do. But, honestly? I can’t handle this. I can’t handle hearing you mention him and acting like things are perfectly fine when they’re not. They’re really, really, not. And we all know that. I know you’re still friends with him, and that’s fine. But, I just can’t, okay. I just can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Harry runs a frustrated hand through his long locks, barely visible in this creaky hallway, “You’ve never even told us what this is all about, why you and Liam, your best mate in the entire world, broke the band apart with one fight. We’ve respected your privacy, Zayn, but it’s been two years. We either deserve to know, or you need to move on. It’s not healthy how much you’re still holding onto this hatred for him.”

Zayn laughs a disturbing sounding laugh. He hasn’t talked about this in twenty-two months and he’s not about to start now, “Hatred’s only part of it. Let’s just say I’ve never been more disappointed in someone in my life than Liam Payne.” With that, Zayn opens the door and walks out to his car, pounding freshly fallen snow into submission.

Over his shoulder, he can hear Harry asking, “But what did he do?”

Zayn just keeps walking. It’s not really so much what he did, but rather what he didn’t do that keeps Zayn awake at night.

.

.

.

.

With the sun in his eyes reflecting off the snow, Zayn curses himself for leaving his Ray Bans at the house. Two cigarettes down and his fingers drum on the steering wheel along to the catchy beat on the R&B station he’s listening to in order to forget about how things ended with Niall and Harry. Fortunately, it’s a Chris Brown song and not one of his own. Getting back in the studio really messed with his head, and he does not want to hear his own pain echoing out of the speakers, hear the little details musically and lyrically that all add up to _Liam_.

Then again, he also doesn’t want to hear any of Liam’s songs. Those are even worse because they’re unfamiliar. He wasn’t part of the process. He didn’t wake Liam up from his bunk to tell him he fixed the intro—he didn’t get the first listen and reassure Liam that his song is amazing until the vulnerability in his puppy brown eyes went away, like all he needs is Zayn’s approval and fuck the world. Each note from his album is a stab in his heart that Liam isn’t there beside him, whispering in his ear, rubbing their feet together, flicking his ear when he isn’t paying attention. No, a Chris Brown song is better than either of those options right now.

Even though he’s avoided the album as much as possible, Zayn knows what’s going on with him. Liam’s career really took off after One Direction. After Zayn.

Before, One Direction was a household name, yet these days Liam Payne commands much more respect as a solo artist than he ever did in a boy band. Liam is a regular Robbie Williams or Justin Timberlake. Zayn shakes his head, reminding himself he needs to pay attention to the road.

“…and boy do we have a treat for our lucky listeners today,” he tunes back into the DJ on the radio, “a new single off his upcoming album, Liam Payne—“ Zayn’s ears perk up and his heart leaps into his chest in that way he still can’t help— “is making strides in the world. Listen to this, in an interview last week with the Today Show, Liam says that his latest single will contain all male pronouns.”

Zayn barks out a surprised laugh. Then laughs again. What the actual fuck. Male pronouns? A bee stings his heart and it swells up with pain. Zayn really doesn’t want to hear any more of this, but he can’t bring himself to turn the station either.

“This means that for the first time, we will have a mainstream artist singing a love song as a man and _to_ a man. How about that for same love, eh?”

Fuck, that god damn hypocrite, Zayn thinks angrily, the car jerking off the road for a brief moment and scaring a nearby cat out of one of its lives. Zayn fumbles turning off the heater.

“Here it is, the world premiere of Liam’s Payne’s new single, and my personal favorite new song, ‘Break Down the Door.’”

The car swerves into the wrong lane this time.

No.

Really, no.

No.

No. No. _No._

This cannot be happening.

But it is. It is totally happening. For a second that stretches to feel like years, Zayn hopes like he’s never hoped before that it’s just a fluke and somehow someone wrote a song with the exact same title as _that song_. Coincidences can happen, right? He clings to that hope that he is not about to hear the most private and intimate of his songs, a song so filled with heartbreak and raw emotion that it was never meant to see the light of day, let alone the radio. Zayn’s song definitely was never meant to make its way into Liam’s artistic license.

He holds his breath as the opening bars play. Then he curses creatively.

That hope grows wings and flies away because of course it’s his worst nightmare come to life. That’s his song and that’s a bona fide Liam fucking Payne singing it with enough differences to make it both better and worse.

He pulls the car over, blinking tears out of his eyes. No, that song is private. That song was sitting around on his computer, wasting free space on his external hard drive. That song was not for anyone to record. And for _him_ of all people to not only record it, but to release it as his next single? Zayn takes heaving breaths trying to clear the red haze out of his vision. He’s angry. No, he’s _furious_.

He can’t recall a time in his entire twenty-four years on the planet when he felt this level of rage and betrayal. Not even the final fight that tore the band apart. Not even when _he_ went running back to _her_ after Zayn warned him she was only out for his money in the fight before that. There’s only one way he could have gotten his grubby hands on this track.

He wipes his sleeve across his eyes, unable to even hear the song over the pounding in his ears. He sits there a second, then reaches a shaky hand into his pocket for his iPhone. He unlocks the screen and calls the most frequent number in his call log. He doesn’t wait for hello. Hello is for friends.

“What the hell have you done?”

“Zayn?”

“What the _fuck_ —what the fuck did you think you were doing?” He pushes the words out, “You had no fucking right—no right to sell that song, let alone to _him_. I can’t believe you. I can’t even—“

The voice on the other end of the phone cuts him off, “So you heard it, huh?”

“Yes, I fucking heard it, Louis!” Zayn slams his free hand on the steering wheel hard enough for the horn to sound. He doesn’t give a fuck. He slams it again harder.

Zayn takes a deep breath and he’s really trying to focus on keeping calm but instead he just keeps getting more riled up. He’s never going to be able to get home if he is too worked up to drive and right now all he wants is to be home in his bed with the light off and this day to never have happened. Or maybe Liam’s blood under his fingernails after he beats him with his bare fists.

“Why, Louis?” He rubs his eyes, leaking bastards, “Why would you sell any of my songs to him? You know—you know how I feel about him. Why’d you sell it to him?”

That’s the crux of the matter. Zayn trusted Louis two years ago to work as his agent and sell some of the shittier songs that he produced on a broken heart and too many hits of weed. Might as well make a career out of it if he can’t stop writing anyway and Louis was the natural choice to help sell them. Trustworthy, he’d thought.

“He asked if I had any new songs by Donald K. Johnson—he knows I’m your agent! What was I supposed to say, mate?” Louis’ voice whines and Zayn unkindly thinks that it’s unflattering.

“Oh, I don’t know, just off the top of my head here,” he spits sarcastically, “That Mr. Johnson has no new songs. That you just sold the last of Mr. Johnson’s songs to fucking Incubus. That Mr. Johnson won’t sell to Liam Payne. That Mr. Johnson died in a fire! Fucking anything except ‘here, mate, have a listen to this poor sap’s broken heart.’”

There’s a rustling sound on the other end, and Zayn can picture Louis leaving whatever room he was in to take this call more privately, “He’s my friend, Zee.”

“I’m your friend, too,” Zayn says quietly, the shock of the song starting to settle into his bones and not in a good way, “I mean, I thought I was.”

Louis sighs, “Of course you are.”

“Then, really, why’d you do it? Because I know you’re split on the issue, but this wasn’t just personal. This was _my_ business decision. So why’d you do it? And don’t feed me any more bullshit.”

They sit in tense silence for a couple seconds before Louis speaks again, his voice meek like he knows he’s in the wrong, “Don’t you think it’s time you and Liam settled your differences? Neither of you would ever say what happened, but it’s been so long and you were once so close. If you just talked to each other…”

Zayn feels laughter bubble up in his throat with a little vomit and he chokes both back down his throat. He’s good at choking things down, “No, Louis. I know you don’t know everything that happened, but. But some things can’t just be ‘worked out.’ And especially not by pushy mates who betray their best friends.” Fuck, of all days…

“I didn’t—“ Louis starts, uncharacteristically sincere, “I didn’t mean to, like, betray you, you know.”

Zayn looks up at the roof of the Escalade, praying for the patience that he knows he is going to need, “God, I know you didn’t, Lou. But, still, I’m not sure you grasp the severity of what you’ve just done to me. I get that you, like, were trying to help or whatever.”

That’s a concession because he doesn’t really get it. He stays out of the lads’ business, why must they butt into his? A tiny voice in his head whispers that he can’t afford another rift with a bandmate, a brother. His hear would shatter. This is Louis—Louis isn’t Liam. Louis’ betrayal, while still painful won’t flay him alive.

“I was trying to help!” He says, like he’s glad that Zayn gets it.

“I know, but. Louis, if this happens again, if you betray my trust like this again, I can’t—“ He coughs, clearing his throat, “I can’t have another one of you hurt me like that, okay? I just can’t.”

There’s a pause on the other end when Zayn’s done and he knows from years next to Louis, from months long road trips sitting next to each other, from living and breathing the same life, that Louis will never do something like this again. There’s pranking your mates and there’s ruining your mates’ lives with good intentions. Ever the line-crosser, Louis won’t go there again.

“Okay, Zayn,” Louis breathes out, “I still don’t get what happened, and I honestly don’t get why you’re so upset over this either, but I know I don’t ever want to be the reason you feel like this. I—“

“I know,” Zayn says, and he this time he does. He knows that Louis won’t apologize, knows he will probably go gossip about it with Harry and Niall, but he also knows that that’s as far as it will get.

“Talk to you soon?” Louis asks, a hopeful note in his voice.

Zayn thinks about this day—how he finally achieved a huge personal and professional goal, one of his songs absolutely perfect, only to be followed by the lowest low in two years and, maybe he does want to just go to bed, but maybe he also wants someone else there to distract him. Maybe he wants someone to share a spliff with.

“Wanna come ‘round mine for dinner? I could use a smoke and a cuddle.”

He can hear Louis’ relieved smile through the phone, can pictures his exact face, “Sounds perfect. I’ll bring my groveling supplies.”

“Your turn to buy, so don’t forget the weed.”

“God, no,” Louis says in his ear, sounding disgusted, “what am I? New? I was never as good as…. Other people… but I do know how to bring you out of your moods.”

Zayn puts the car back in drive and checks his side mirror to see if it’s safe to pull out, “I know, Louis. I know.”

“See you soon.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Zayn doesn’t bother answering the door when Louis knocks a few hours later, he’ll let himself in eventually. There’s a reason Zayn gave him a key, and it’s not so that he can get off his arse and open the door when Louis is perfectly capable of doing it himself.

“Were you going to get the door?” Louis asks when he finally gives up on knocking thirty seconds later, lets himself in and wanders over to the living room, trying and failing to keep the annoyance out of his tone.

Zayn shrugs from the couch, “Looks like it worked out alright to me.”

They sit and play hours of FIFA. There are certain ways that forgiveness works and spending four hours playing video games is absolutely one of them. They don’t bring up the fight, it’s over and now the healing happens. Truthfully, with the exception of his falling out with Liam, he’s always had a hard time staying mad at the boys. Zayn allows himself to bask in Louis’ presence and take in the moment. He guards himself inside Louis’ love for him, uses it to mask the other anger darkening his soul.

Because he knows that as soon as he’s alone and undistracted the anger is going to come back. That anger never disappears, but it’s no longer directed at Louis, but back where it belongs, squarely with Liam. Even here, Zayn’s purposefully using every ounce of his focus to keep his mind in the present, to only feel the positivity leaking out of Louis, but—

There’s always a but.

The seeds sown on that ugly day in April when he felt himself break in half are starting to grow. Those seeds germinated, watered with bitterness and fertilized with hit number one single after hit number one single – well, those seeds are flowering now.

And Louis can’t stay forever.

When Louis prepares to leave, Zayn clings to his presence, knowing he only has precious moments left of his favorite form of distraction.

“You sure you’re okay?” Louis says as they reach the front door, “Because I can stay, you know, we can have a sleepover just like old times.”

Zayn gives him a half-hearted smile, “No you can’t, Lou. You have shit to do tomorrow. You have my songs to sell and maybe some other bloke’s or whatever else it is that keeps you busy all day.”

Louis pulls him into a hug and they embrace until Zayn lets out a long sigh. His boys know he needs a good cuddle. Back in the day it was usually Liam who… Louis indulges him again and pulls him as close as possible.

“Are you sure you aren’t still mad at me?” Louis says into his left ear.

Zayn pats Louis on the back, “I’m not mad at you,” he says and that part isn’t even a lie, he’s forgiven Louis like they truly are blood brothers, “but I’m not fine yet. I will be, but just… not yet.”

Louis nods into his neck like he gets it, though Zayn knows for a fact he doesn’t, “Okay,” he nods again, sounding like he doesn’t know what else to do, “okay.” Zayn squeezes him harder.

“And you’re sure you won’t tell me what all this is about?” He asks in one large breath and Zayn abruptly pulls out of Louis’ arms, “I just mean that we’re here for you, Zayn! We want to help, but if neither one of you will even say what the hell happened, how are we supposed to—“

“Supposed to what, Louis? Supposed to ‘fix it?’ You can’t fucking fix it and I thought we decided that you weren’t going to try,” He feels the thrum of anger he’s been holding back with a dam of sheer will start to bend. Louis doesn’t know how finely he’s walking Zayn’s last nerve.

“I just meant…” Louis trails off a little awkwardly before Zayn sees him work up his courage to continue, “He misses you.”

Right in the jugular. Louis could not have picked a worse day to have this conversation.

“No he doesn’t,” Zayn says and is rapidly tiring of this conversation. He turns around to walk into the kitchen. He needs a beer to deal with this.

“Yes he does,” Louis insists, following him to the refrigerator, “You haven’t seen him—“

“Rightly so,” Zayn says, pulling the door open hard enough for his salad dressings to clink together, “I wouldn’t go within a hundred meters of him.”

“No one’s asking you to, but why can’t you just _talk_ to him?” Louis’ voice gets whiney like it used to when he was a teenager.

Zayn twists off the top of his beer and chugs half of it before coming up for air. Maybe it’s the weed, maybe it’s his sheer exhaustion on this topic, maybe it’s because this is the third time this has come up today alone and he’s feeling particularly brittle, but something snaps, “Once upon a time I did try talking to him. And look how that turned out,” he snorts into the bottle and hears a bit of his own echo as he continues.

 “With me having a mental breakdown on the side of the highway because some idiot sold my song to him and now he’s going to be even more famous and even more happy because of me and I’m going to have to hear it over and over and fucking over again and hear about how fucking _brave_ he is for making a stand for his gay fans when he’s such a fucking hypocrite.”

His hands shake violently. Louis grabs the beer out of his hands, “What do you mean he’s a hypocrite?”

Zayn snorts and he sounds robotic and dead to his own ears. “Nothing, nothing, I just—“

“No, no, go on then. How is Liam a hypocrite?” Louis says and Zayn notes the underlying challenge there.

Zayn squares his shoulders and looks up to meet Louis in the eye. So they’re going to do this, huh? Zayn looks at the quirk in Louis’ smile and knows he’s playing right into his hands, but can’t back down from that stupid expression. Too many conversations today about this and he’s ready to lay it to rest. Part of him wants to see the shock on Louis’ face, wipe that fucking smirk off his face.

“That day when we argued, I came out to him, okay?”

And suddenly after all his bravado, he can’t look at Louis anymore. This was hard enough the first time and it went terribly, terribly wrong that time.

To his credit, Louis doesn’t pause for long, “So, how did he take it when you told him you were bi?”

Of course perceptive Louis already had part of it right. He still feels the need to correct him, though, “I’m not bi, Louis. And considering the band broke up because of me coming out to Liam, how well do you think it went? Fucking peachy.”

“I’m not stupid, I know it didn’t go swimmingly,” he puts a hand on Zayn’s shoulder, and Zayn sinks into the touch, letting all the conflicting emotions roll over him, “I just mean, did he call you a name? Because if he called you _that_ fucking word I will beat the ever loving shite out of him, I don’t care how many Brit Awards he has.” This statement is made ever more threatening in the soft voice that Louis uses, protective mode activated.

“No, he didn’t—“ Zayn shakes his head, “He would never call me _that_. But, it just did not end well. For either of us.”

“I remember.”

“Can we drop this now?” Zayn asks, looking at the floor, wishing he could trade places with one of the flag stones.

Louis’ hand squeezes his shoulder, “Yeah, yeah. Thanks for telling me as much as you did.”

“You tricked it out of me.”

Louis’ eyes light up, “Yeah and I’m not sorry. There are things that are too big to hold on to by yourself or they’ll carry you away.”

He feels Louis kiss him softly on the forehead and then he leaves. Zayn looks at the nearly empty beer on the counter and downs the rest of it. His fingers are already twitching with the need to pick at the piano keys. He can feel a new song about to burst out of him set to the beat of his own broken heart. He’s not going to write those songs anymore. He’s not going to write about how much he misses Liam. He’s not going to write about heartbreak or what the fuck ever.

He’s angry and he’s going to write angry.

He chases that beer with coffee.

It’s likely going to be a late night.

.

.

.

Three weeks held up in his studio later and everyone is officially worried about him. There’s a group text about it. Zayn ignores it to fiddle with his new beats program. On the tube one day, he hears the start of a sick beat in the tapping of fingers, and transposes it quickly into his Rockband app to re-create later. He takes a break to grab a coffee at Starbucks four months later, sees Liam’s album right next to the register, and he walks out without ordering anything. Zayn’s lyric notebook’s pages are just that much more filled up by the time he goes to sleep.

He’s opening himself to inspiration.

Walking through the cheese aisle at Tesco, he finds himself paralyzed in front of the Gouda cheese because Liam made a horrible joke six years ago and Zayn couldn’t breathe for laughing so hard and now Zayn just can’t breathe at all. That stupid fucking song starts playing over the store’s radio system and he almost has a panic attack right there in the cheese aisle. He doesn’t sleep that night but he does get a text from Louis asking if he’s alright.

He ignores the text and writes through the night, his fingers have calluses on them from the soundboard in his newly created studio, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about anything but getting it all out, because the longer it stays in the more power it has to hurt him. The only thing that helps stem the pain is releasing it back into the universe.

The escape into the music is much like the escape he used to find in his art. He dives in and explores corners of himself he’d left in the shadow. He shines a light into those hidden crevices and pokes at demons he didn’t even know he had—demons not better or worse than the mess with Liam, but different demons ignored and incapable of healing.

Zayn wouldn’t classify himself dramatic, that was always Louis, and to some degree, Niall as well, but with each song he uploads to Louis’ inbox he can feel a shift in the world around him. Or maybe just something inside himself.

Six months pass from the day he hears his song on the radio, and yeah, everyone’s worried. Besides Louis’ periodic phone calls and the E-card Harry sent him with an octopus on it that probably made sense to him, he also receives a few visits from Niall who “just happened to be in the neighborhood,” like that fools Zayn.

Those six months fly by and before Zayn knows it, he’s written nearly thirty songs, songs that matter, songs that dig deeper than his previous bubblegum pop stuff, songs that collectively make up _Zayn._ And yeah, some of them are shit, he’s not in any doubt about that. But some of them are hauntingly beautiful. Call it a lark, call it a flash of intuition, call it plain old possessive, but Zayn makes it clear to Louis that he isn’t to sell these songs. He tells him not to sell any of these songs to anyone at the moment because a strange, scary, terrible idea starts materializing in Zayn’s mind and he can’t shake it.

He’s sitting in his bedroom at 3:47 on a Thursday, no Friday morning, listening to all thirty of his tantrum songs like some kind of masochist and… yeah, he thinks. Some of these songs are shit, but he can always sell those to Selena Gomez or whoever, because some of these songs? Some of them are really fucking good and the idea of hearing another one of his songs on the radio by anyone else, another one of his songs with someone else’s and someone else’s producer’s interpretation of it—Zayn can’t let that happen. He can’t sell any of these songs. Not even the shitty ones to Selena Gomez. They’re _his_. They belong to him, and the part of his heart that still belongs to Liam says that some of them kind of belong to Liam too.

But not all of them, because as Zayn listens back to these songs, filled with moments of on the fly rapping that he felt was right at the moment and soulful melodies that kick the listener in the heart, there are things that are just for Zayn. There are moments of Zayn’s life independent of his broken heart, independent of being in the world’s most successful boy band, things that, though he experienced a significant amount of his life with the same four boys, belong exclusively to him, rounds of his individual journey.

He hears echoes of how he feels when the airlines single him out to search him and his stuff, because of how he looks, no matter how famous he becomes. He hears lines that remind him of how management tried _so hard_ to make him accessible to the public, easier to swallow. They gave him a white girlfriend, then fiancé, and shoved her down the world’s throat at every opportunity, and still he sat alone in private, a gay non-white Muslim boy who just wanted to sing. He never fit in the mold of the “proper” musician and he’s fucking sick of it.

He’s here now, he has a platform, a plethora of too-intimate songs, and a dangerous level of ire that makes his tongue slippery.

So Zayn does the only thing that makes sense to him at 3:52 on a chilly Friday morning. He opens up his barely touched Twitter app and tweets:

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There was a time in Zayn’s life when he thought he was born lucky. Or maybe he was just trying to make it that way. He made it through X-Factor, One Direction came together under fire, he found a kindred spirit in all four boys, but especially Liam, and things were only looking up, up, up for One Direction. In a fit of teenage rebellion, and at the urging of one Louis Tomlinson, Zayn gets a Chinese Kanji tattoo of born lucky slapped onto his hip.

He regrets the tattoo weeks later. Almost like he cursed himself, Zayn starts to see through the veneer of his life. How can he have been born lucky when this life isn’t what he thought it would be? How can he be born lucky when he’s not white enough for the public? How can he be born lucky when management is dancing around giving him a white girlfriend, and Zayn’s starting to think he doesn’t want any kind of girlfriend ever?

The more late nights he spends with Liam on the bus, cuddled up in one bunk, elbows digging into sides and knees entwined, reading the Green Lantern by torch, the more he comes to realize that _this_ is what he wants—and yeah, not so lucky after all. Because here’s Liam, proud, strong, _brave_ Liam, the straightest man in Zayn’s orbit, and Zayn _longs_ for him. That feeling that Zayn mistook for kindred spirits morphs into one of relentless wanting, of gauging his behavior so he won’t give anything away, of constant paranoia that the world will discover his queerness and that would end One Direction.

He can’t stand seeing that tattoo on his skin a second longer, and the next time they have a clear night, he decides to cover it up with the first thing he sees in the tattoo parlor. Before he can sneak out, Liam catches him. Unable to come up with an excuse or lie to Liam, it’s always extremely difficult lying to Liam, he comes clean and suddenly Liam’s tagging along.

When they arrive, it’s late and the artist only stays because Zayn promises to pay him double. Liam helps him look through the books of ideas for something sick, without asking why Zayn wants to cover up his previous tattoo. Liam’s good like that, letting things lie when they need to lie. Zayn ends up not caring what he gets, because anything at this point is going to remind him of Liam and not of that stupid Born Lucky kanji from before. Zayn flips the pages without really seeing any of the patterns, studiously ignoring the impatience of the artist, before Liam flips the book closed with a heavy thwap.

“What if you just get like a shape over it?”

Zayn thinks it over, at this point, a shiny unicorn on his hip is going to remind him of Liam. So Liam might as well come up with the design.

“What shape are you thinking, Leeyum?”

“I dunno, mate,” Liam shrugs, “why don’t you get something manly like a heart?”

Liam’s teasing, but Zayn looks at the other side of his hip where “Don’t think I won’t” stares back at him, another gem curtesy of Louis Tomlinson, and smirks back in challenge.

“Done.” He motions the artist over and explains what he wants. The artist, his mouth hidden behind a grizzly beard, looks thankful he’s made up his mind and the tat’s not difficult, and then starts to get out the sanitized equipment.

“Really, Zayn?” Liam says, “You’re seriously going to get a black heart?”

“Why not?”

He watches Liam struggle to come up with a rejoinder, only to take pity on him. “You know you’re my best mate, right?”

Liam looks confused, but quickly responds, “You’re my best mate, too.”

“So if my best mate says to get a black heart because it’d be sick, I’m going to do it.”

He watches the awe spread over Liam’s face. It’s easy to forget that Liam came from being bullied and not having a lot of friends, because Zayn sees the whole world in him. To Zayn’s eye, he’s larger than life, a kick-arse performer, insanely talented, but also contains the kindest heart Zayn’s ever encountered. It’s easy to forget that Liam isn’t used to this level of friendship just as much as Zayn.

“You do think it’s going to look sick, don’t you?” Zayn teases him.

Liam nods, emotion shining in his eyes that Zayn can’t completely place, but looks to be a distant cousin of fondness, “Yeah, yeah, I think it will be pretty sick.”

Zayn sits up in the tattoo chair and takes his shirt off, knowing the drill by now. He sets in to wait for the artist to return, and get this over with.

“Hey Zaynie,” Liam says softly from the chair beside him.

“Yeah?”

“Every time you look at that tattoo I want you to remember that you’re special. I want you to remember that you’re my favorite person in the whole world, okay?”

Zayn smiles, and feels a little less not born lucky. How could he not be lucky to end up friends with this doofus?

“You’re my favorite too, Liam,” he says back and then the artist returns, ready to get inking and then get home. 

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His announcement stirs up a rancor on the internet within hours of his desperate tweet, not that Zayn knows about that until Louis knocks on his door hours later because Zayn’s phone battery died around the time he finally crashed.

“What’s this about an album, Zayn?” he asks after he gives up on knocking and lets himself in. Louis finds in him in the studio, Zayn’s habitat for the last six months. Two years, really.

“How do you know about that?” Zayn takes off the Beats headphones, “I’ve only just decided it.”

Louis rolls his eyes, bringing out his phone and shoving the tweet in his face, “You tweeted it, you idiot. It’s like you always forget that you’re famous and people can see what you do.” The phone is so close to Zayn’s nose that the words are blurry, “That’s 800,000 likes, re-tweets, and favorites, just so you know.”

“Holy shit,” Zayn breathes out, grabbing the phone to bring it to a readable level so he can check for himself. Louis isn’t lying, “I thought this would be one of those pity albums that people don’t buy and don’t bother to listen to,” he admits.

“You haven’t even recorded it, yet,” Louis helpfully points out, “How do you even know that people won’t like it? I mean, if you’re serious about putting out an album.”

Zayn shrugs, people don’t know what type of music he’d release. These songs are R&B, his favorite genre, not the pop the world is used to with One Direction, “I think I kind of have to now, mate,” he thrusts Louis’ phone back into its owners hands, “besides, you’re the only other person who’s heard all these songs I’ve been making. They’re so personal, Louis, I can’t let anyone else have them, but I also can’t let them, like, just sit there either, you know?”

“So we’re doing this?”

Zayn raises an eyebrow, “We are?”

“Yeah, mate. Somebody’s got to get you a record deal and then be your liaison because, no offense, but you’re kind of shit at that sort of thing.”

Zayn’s afraid to admit that he feels a well of emotion catch in the back of his throat. He’s so happy to have someone on his side. He remembers the excitement of a new album, remembers the excitement in the potential, the malleability of this concept—but then, he also remembers the rigidity. He recalls a tyrannical management, endless testing, and more and more of himself chipping away with each album.

“You’re right,” he says, “and I’ll need someone who can argue that I’m doing this album exactly how I want to and will take no direction from management or _producers_ or whoever tries to warp things to how they think the people will react to things,” he puts the headphones down, freeing his finger to point threateningly at Louis, like he’s the one Zayn’s actually mad at, “And if I hear one mention of how things ‘tested’ I am so out and I am producing this album on my laptop and giving it out for free,” he pokes Louis in the chest, “Make sure you stress that.”

Louis smiles and his eyes crinkle. Zayn hasn’t seen that smile on Louis in a long, long time. “What?” he asks, suddenly self-conscious, his hand dropping from Louis’ chest and falling into his pocket to clutch his half-empty pack of cigs.

“Nothing, I’m just…” Louis trails off for a second before continuing, “I’m just so proud of you. And so happy to have my mate back. You were kind of scary there for a while. Went off the deep end a bit.”

Zayn laughs in relief, because yeah, he did go a bit crazy there. He can’t honestly say he’s not still crazy, but if he’s got Louis fooled then he’s not going to mention it.

“So,” Louis plops down onto the soundboard next to Zayn, “An album.”

Zayn pulls him into a one armed hug, and says definitely, “A mother fucking album.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Zayn’s not a classically trained musician. He has on the job experience, half a lesson here and there, and a good ear. Luckily, it doesn’t take Louis long to track down the best musicians in the business to help Zayn express what each song means.

His friends help as well, sometimes working as sounding boards, and sometimes collaborators. Harry came to him with an idea for the song dedicated to the happy times. With Harry’s help, the tone of the song slots into place for how Zayn imagined it months ago when it poured out of him with _Friends_ playing in the background. He remembers long marathons of _Friends_ on the tour bus, Niall’s head in his lap and Louis’ arm around him, all five of them unable to breathe from laughing. Zayn decides before it’s even finished that this song will be his first single. He asks Harry to sing the harmony for him. By the huge grin on his face, he made the right choice.

It feels great to have a project to pour himself into. He only has time to focus on the music—making creative decisions, arguing with his management via Louis, drawing little doodles that go with each song. It’s been so long since he was proud of something like he’s proud of this album.

Before he knows it, his single plays on that same station from months before that started this whole mess and Zayn couldn’t feel more differently than he did then.

“That was Zayn Malik with ‘Pivot’ featuring Harry Styles off his upcoming album ‘Tantrum’ coming out this November,” the American accents rings out of the radio, “Call me crazy, but this time last year I don’t think I would have been this excited for an upcoming album, let alone Zayn Malik’s. It looks like it’s going to be sick. Of course, like with everything Zayn does there’s a veil of mystery surrounding the album, but with songs featuring Harry Styles, Usher,” Zayn’s still in shock that he not only met Usher, but convinced him to record a song with him, “and every track written by or with Don K. Johnson, the new king of songwriting, things are looking more and more like this is a seriously cool album. The buzz around it is crazy right now. I’ve already pre-ordered it and so have millions of others.”

The DJ is right they find a week later when the album drops and it goes straight to number one.

It’s a shocking world Zayn wakes up to in the weeks after the release of ‘Tantrum.’ Suddenly he’s relevant again—but it’s different. He isn’t getting stalked by random teens anymore. There are adults that are stopping him on the street to tell him they love his songs. There are British Muslims telling him on twitter how much his songs mean to them. There’s a fifteen year old gay boy in America who says he didn’t kill himself because Zayn’s songs say it still sucks, but gets better. Every positive review warms Zayn from the frozen ice cube he’s been living as for the last few years.

For the first time, Zayn’s excruciatingly honest with the world and it’s refreshing that they honor his honesty. There’s no big statement in the press about his sexuality, but there’s a line about loving beard burn in his songs that is transparent enough that he feels like he doesn’t need an announcement. And Zayn likes it that way. Let the music speak for him. Of course, the world doesn’t always see eye to eye with him, so there are articles upon articles speculating on what to Zayn is very obvious, that he’s gay.

After that shit storm, he pretty much refuses to do promo. Louis half-heartedly tries to convince him to, but they both know there’s no point. His record is selling well and his air of mystery has always drawn in more people than it repulses. He didn’t make this album to make money, he did it to exorcise his demons.

He does play SNL, though, because it’s an excuse to get out of London for a couple weeks. And also it’s SNL.

The Grammy nominations come out in early December and he wakes up to a text from Louis, Niall, his mum, and Harry, amongst other people he doesn’t care about, congratulating him on his four nominations. He congratulates Harry right back.

He waits until he’s had three beers to look at the other nominations and sure enough Liam’s been nominated as well, one for Zayn’s song as “Song of the Year” where the award goes to the writer of the song. Zayn drinks four more beers in the hopes that he won’t remember this come the morning.

He does remember.

For Christmas, he stays with his family at his parent’s house, the only time everybody has off work or school. For New Year’s he goes out with Niall and definitely doesn’t almost cry when he sees Liam on the pub telly performing _that song_ in Time’s Square. He goes home with some random guy who he thinks is called Steve, but he’s short and black and fit and doesn’t remind him at all of Liam and that’s just his type these days.

At the end of the month, he remembers how much he hated award shows. Zayn struggles into the skin tight pants his stylist Caroline chose for him to wear. Zayn thinks they make his skinny legs look distinctly more chicken-like, but she’s been doing this long enough for Zayn to know she’s always right so he buttons them up and gets into the limo, a knot of dread in his stomach. His older sister calls and he ignores her. His mum calls then and he can’t fight that tiny boy inside him who still thinks he’ll get grounded if he angers his mother.

“Hey, Mum,” he answers on the third ring.

“Hi baby, you nervous?” And that’s his mum, cutting straight to the chase.

He looks out the window at Los Angeles, “A bit.”

She gives him a second to continue and when he doesn’t, she speaks up, “Are you more nervous about the awards or about seeing Liam?”

Zayn sighs, rubbing his temple with his free hand. It’s a good question. He doesn’t know.

“Because I spoke to him the other day and he’s pretty nervous about you being there, too,” she says with a note of pleading in it—like she just wants them to get along. Zayn’s starting to get used to this tone in his loved one’s voices. The Liam tone. Fuck, he hasn’t even seen him in years and he’s still annoying the fuck out of him.

“Mum!” Zayn can’t believe Liam’s talking to his _mum_ of all people, “what are you doing talking to Liam?”

“Well I never had a falling out with him, honey,” she says like Zayn is the crazy one here and she’s completely reasonable, “this family has always considered Liam one of our own and until you give us an actual reason why we shouldn’t talk to him, I’ll continue to call him every Thursday at 9:00.”

The limo approaches the line waiting to drop off the celebrity guests, “You have a standing appointment to talk to him?”

“I wouldn’t call it an ‘appointment,’ but, yes. He calls me more than my own son, anyway,” she says and now Zayn is getting more angry than nervous. He can do anger, anger is like his natural state these days.

“You’re laying the guilt trip on pretty thick, Mum,” he says under his breath.

He can practically hear her smile through the phone, “Yeah, but it’s working to keep you from being too nervous isn’t it?”

He huffs a laugh, caught out, “Yeah, yeah I guess it is. I’ll call you after?”

“You better. Or I’ll have to hear all about it on Thursday, won’t I?”

He shakes his head, but only the driver can see him, “You’ll hear about it before Thursday. Promise.”

“Knock ‘em dead, baby. I’m so proud of you,” she says and hangs up before he can say good-bye.

Seconds later they pull up to the red carpet and Zayn feels the nerves creep up his spine and land in the pit of his stomach. He grabs his lapels and fluffs his jacket a bit, hoping it’s sitting right on his shoulders since he doesn’t have a mirror or another boy-bander to consult.

The instant the crowd recognizes him, they scream. They’re probably smiling and thrusting things toward him to sign, but he can’t see them for all the flashing white lights. It’s been a while since he’s done this, but it’s not really something you can either learn or ever forget how to do. A bit like riding a bike, but nothing like riding a bike.

Walking up to the first interviewer in the queue, Zayn places the anxiety aside much like he used to do in this type of setting. Before, he had four other people to spread the attention and save him from his own tongue, and Liam who always just knew when Zayn was nearing his breaking point. Here Zayn’s their sole focus. It’s daunting, but at least this time he’s promoting his own music. If anything, he can always go on about the process of writing an album. Except that _he_ didn’t write it, Donald K. Johnson did, he reminds himself. Well, he supposes he can always come up with an elaborate scheme as to how he seduced Donald K. Johnson and extorted an album out of him.

That could get fun.

The first interviewer from an online magazine doesn’t ask how he came by twenty well-written songs by Johnson. She does ask about his love life and if he’s seeing anybody, vaguely hinting at if he’s possibly interested in seeing a man or a woman, putting the rumors to rest. Zayn simply says he’s not seeing anybody and she lets it go. He’s grateful to her for making the interview easy for him. He smiles politely while she compliments his outfit, and he answers as honestly as he can when she asks how it feels to be back. Overall, it’s a bland interview and he forgets about it as soon as she shakes her hand good-bye.

Louis forced him to do two red carpet interviews, knowing how little he likes to be interviewed and how his shyness can detract from his talent sometimes. But Louis also works the logistics side of him selling albums, so he agrees with the record label that he does have to do some promo. Even if Zayn didn’t release it for money, the musicians need to be paid. Plus, it wouldn’t do to alienate the press altogether. They might write even nastier things.

With that in mind, Zayn makes his way over to his second interview, this time with a gentleman from E!

“Zayn Malik,” he begins, his overly whitened teeth blinding in the harsh lights around them, “How are you feeling tonight?” He thrusts the microphone in Zayn’s face.

“I’m alright, yeah.”

This interviewer doesn’t wait for him to finish his answer before he ploughs on, “Now you’re up for Album of the Year this year, amongst others. How does that feel? I mean it’s got to be a great feeling.”

Zayn feels the spirit of Louis hovering over him whispering _smile, smile, SMILE_ into his ear and he tries, he really does try, but it feels more like a grimace on his face. He gives up on the smile, “Yeah, I mean, it’s sick. Totally amazing to even be nominated. I can’t thank everyone enough for thinking about this album. It was just a project in me mum’s garage for so long.”

“Do you think you’ll win?” The interviewer asks cheekily, like he doesn’t know the implicit meaning in that question. If Zayn answers yes, he becomes arrogant and complacent. If he answers no, he doesn’t have any confidence in himself and he’s weak. This is why Zayn doesn’t miss awards season, it’s a minefield of dodging questions and playing a game where Zayn never really fully learned the rules.

The question still lingers in the air, and there’s no glossing over it. He looks up the red carpet, people scattered about – celebrities, their teams of stylists and make up assistants, managers, everyone who’s anyone in the music business. And here he is. Alone, because _why do I need five people with me at all times, Louis? I can talk to two reporters and then walk inside, it’s not a big deal._ Zayn made a conscious decision to have fewer people around him, and this is the only time he’s even touched on regretting it.

He settles for a bland, “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?” hoping that he’s reached a safe middle ground.

He hasn’t by the look on the reporter’s face. He’s searching for a story, a big break or some shit, and Zayn isn’t giving it to him. Zayn watches the expression on the interviewers face shift to that of a predator and Zayn rocks onto the balls of his feet, like he’s ready to run.

“Your former band mate Liam Payne is also up for Album of the Year,” and there it is. He quells the panic down and forces himself to listen to the rest of the question no matter what it might be, “How do you feel about that?”

Honestly? He doesn’t really know. He’s refused to think about it for so long that he doesn’t have an answer. He’s confused with all the emotions flooding him before this interviewer and now he curses his past self for refusing to think about it because no he has to consider it on camera in front of millions.

“I’m thrilled for him,” he says tightly, trying to get the message across that he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore. This is why he needed people here to back him up.

The shark reporter smells blood, “What do you have to say about the feud between the two of you?”

Zayn’s done with this conversation now, “What’s between me and Liam is between me and Liam. Thank you for the interview. Have a great night.”

He starts to turn around, but before he can the interview makes one more comment, “What do you have to say in response to Liam alleging that you tried to steal his girlfriend, Sophia Smith?”

Zayn’s fury is doubled now and where before he still had a hold on reality enough to know he needed to step away before he said something he might regret, that tether is gone and all Zayn has in his sights is a very sad man who doesn’t know what he’s talking about, didn’t he get the possibly gay memo about Zayn?

“I think that there’s no way in hell that Liam Payne would say that about me, mate. Get your facts straight before you bring something like that up to me. No matter what’s between us, Liam would never, ever, say that about me. So unless you have a question that’s not about my personal life, then this interview is done.”

Zayn walks away before the interviewer has another chance to goad him into staying and further embarrassing himself on camera. He bypasses the rest of the red carpet and goes to find his seat, determined to not let his anger get the best of him. He decides to let it go.

Zayn’s seated next to Rihanna. He’s met her before, and the first thing she says after a quick greeting is “How the hell did you get Donald K. Johnson to write a whole album for you? I’ve been trying to team up with him for months.”

He’s taken aback a bit. _Rihanna_ wants to collaborate with him? Louis will be getting a strongly worded text later in the day because hell yeah Zayn wants to work with Rihanna.

“I’ll have a word with him,” Zayn says instead of what he wants to say which is just a bunch of squealing, “I have a feeling the message didn’t get passed along to him.”

She smiles and Zayn remembers why he was so into her music for such a long time. She has an energy about her and exudes an air of cool that’s hypnotic.

“Thank you, I’d appreciate it,” she says in her Barbados accent and one of her arms creeps up to pat the back of his hand, “I’ve been rooting for you, you know. I fucking love your album. ‘Tea Time’ makes me cry every God damn time I listen to it and if you don’t win Album of the Year, then there’s no justice in the world.”

Zayn blinks back at her, his hand tingling where she patted it, “Um, thanks, Rihanna. I’m a huge fan of your music as well,” he feels the tell-tale signs of a blush on his cheeks, “It’s kind of embarrassing actually.”

“We’ll have to record together sometime,” she whispers as the lights start to dim and everyone scrambles to find their seats.

Zayn sees Liam sit down on the other end of their row. There are eight people between them. It’s not enough. An entire football stadium wouldn’t be enough. Zayn takes in his grey suit, freshly shaved face, his cufflinks are a bit too far away to see, but Zayn would bet money that he’s wearing the blue ones his dad gave him for good luck before their first Brit Award. Liam’s head jerks toward him and before he can look away or pretend he was looking at something else, their eyes lock. Zayn feels a punch to his stomach. He’s trapped—like a deer that sees the end coming right before the bullet hits. Liam’s eyes are that un-nameable shade of brown and his hair is a bit longer than it’s been in the past. He registers that _she’s_ not with him, the only positive about all this. Zayn breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth like he was taught, but he still feels lightheaded. Liam nods at him and Zayn snaps out of it.

He turns back to Rihanna to avoid Liam’s gaze, “I have a feeling we’ll be in the studio together soon,” he whispers back.

The show begins and honestly, Zayn is so shaken by the moment with Liam that most of it goes by in a blur. They go through the awards and when they get to his category Rihanna has to nudge him a bit when the camera pans to him to be seen on television. He reminds himself to grovel to her later.

“And the winner of the R&B Single of the Year goes to…” Taylor Swift says from the stage, but Zayn barely hears her because he’s looking at the jumbo screen showing his and Liam’s faces right next to each other. Liam looks nervous. He used to get that same look on his face before big performances—the Olympics, the Teen Choice Awards for the first time. It’s not obvious, but Zayn knows him well enough to know he’s bricking it.

Somehow that makes Zayn feel better.

“…Liam Payne for his song ‘Break Down the Door!’”

Fuck.

 _Fuck_.

Fuck everything because Zayn didn’t even consider this is as a possibility and he really, really should have. He didn’t check which songs Liam had been nominated for when he built up enough courage to check the nominations and he could have saved himself the shock of this moment if he did. He’s got to stop compartmentalizing like this, it can’t be healthy. Honestly, it never crossed Zayn’s mind that Liam might win for _that song_.

The crowd applauds and Rihanna elbows him subtly to remind him that he has to clap as well. He should hire her to be his common sense adviser. He doubts she’d like that demotion though.

Liam runs up the stage steps to hug Taylor Swift and Zayn swallows a bitter laugh because Liam never liked her and there he is embracing her like they’re long lost siblings.

Zayn doesn’t mind losing to that song—a part of him is proud his song won a Grammy. A freakin’ Grammy. Even if Liam’s performance of that song won the Grammy, Zayn is still part of a Grammy winning song, even if no one else knows it. He toiled over it, he cried in the dark on Liam’s birthday with that song on loop, it’s a part of him and now it’s award winning.

Liam accepts the trophy out of Taylor’s hand and raises it in the air. “Wow,” he begins, looking at the trophy like a prat, “I can’t believe I’m standing here right now. I’ve got so many people to thank—thanks to my family, my team, Louis Tomlinson for playing this song for me, Donald K. Johnson for writing it, and as always, my muse. Everything I do is for you—“

Zayn whites out in anger—it hits him like a belly flop and he is so enraged he’s breathing out of his nose like a bull. Rihanna elbows him for the third time in the ribs and is starting to look concerned about him.

But Zayn can’t even see straight. Liam had the balls to get up there and thank _her_ in the song that Zayn wrote about Liam. He clenches his right hand into a fist and he has a strong feeling that if he were not in public and potentially live television, he would be destroying something right now. He’s white knuckling the arm rests on both sides.

Liam’s not even done with his fucked up speech, “I hope all my LGBTQ fans know how much I care about them. Everyone deserves to have a song that they can relate to, that they can hear themselves in, and I hope this song is the first of many for you. As always thank you to the fans. Thanks again.”

He exits the stage and Zayn seethes.

“You alright, bro?” Rihanna asks kindly.

Zayn tries to smile assuredly at her, but he thinks he ends up grimacing instead, “I love that song,” he confesses. By the crinkles around her eyes when she smiles back at him, he thinks she gets it.

“Me too,” she slips her hand into his and squeezes. If anybody in this industry will get it, Rihanna probably would be that person. He thanks the seating chart team for placing them together.

More awards go by and Zayn only feels the anger and Rihanna’s hand anchoring him to the present. Her hands are very soft and he loves the smell of her lotion.

Blake Shelton announces his name for R&B Album of the Year and Zayn walks to the stage in a daze. He’s unable to see the crowd because of the lights blazing in his face. He thanks Allah for small favors.

He gives a generic thank you speech, unmemorable even to him. This is why he was never the first, second, or third choice to give the speeches in One Direction.

He goes backstage, they take a few pictures of him with his award, and then they usher him back to his seat next to Rihanna.

At the end of the night, when they announce the big awards, the tension in the ball room crackles. He sees Harry on the jumbo screen looking to the world relaxed, but nervous to Zayn. After his win for Pop Album of the year, he’s up for Record of the year and Album of the Year along with Zayn and Liam. Zayn admits, taking a step back from the situation, that having 3/5 of One Direction alum albums as contenders for Album of the Year is a pretty huge deal. Especially to the people who said they were talentless back in the day. Well, look at them now.

Ariana Grande, as last year’s winner of Song of the Year, steps onstage to announce the nominations and the ballroom goes silent like it hadn’t through the classical awards and the heavy metal awards.

“This next award is for the song-writer. We have many talented musicians as nominations this year, one writer nominated twice, and the nominees are—“

She reads out the nominees in her little girl voice and Zayn hears his pseudonym twice, once for his own song ‘Swingset Glory’ and the other for Liam’s ‘Break Down the Door.’

“Your winner for Song of the Year is Donald K. Johnson for ‘Break Down the Door,’” Ariana announces and Zayn silently thanks her for not doing the pause thing. He’s about to get out of his seat to accept the award when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. Liam’s already out of his chair and making his way to the stage. Zayn watches in horror as Liam goes up to accept the award.

Rihanna shoots him a questioning look and Zayn shakes his head.

“I’d like to accept this award on behalf of Mr. Johnson, as he likes to keep his identity anonymous,” Liam says into the microphone, not even out of breath from the climb, “I kept as faithful to his music and lyrics as possible and though I haven’t spoken with him, I do hope he thinks I’ve done his song justice. On behalf of Mr. Johnson, thank you.”

The rage comes back to the surface.

“One more award,” Rihanna whispers to him, like she can sense that he’s about to fall apart. “Then you can get out of here.”

“Thanks,” he bites out, “I owe you so big for this.”

“If you can get Johnson to write me a song, I’ll owe you, considering he’s won like nine awards altogether tonight.”

“He’ll write you more than one song. He’ll write you a concerto if you want him to.” Zayn would google how to write a concerto if Rihanna asked him for a concerto.

She smiles slyly at him, “That won’t be necessary. Just a nice song and a duet with you, handsome.”

Adam Levine walks out onstage and this is it. This is the award they’ve been waiting for all night—Album of the Year. Zayn’s album barely made the cut off to be eligible this year, and he was honestly surprised to be nominated—still surprised, actually. R&B is a big contender this year, as Liam’s own album is also nominated. Harry is nominated for Pop and Katy Perry has a nomination as well as Kanye and Coldplay.

Kanye.

Zayn’s so happy that he can come out of this and say that his and Kanye’s albums were nominated for the same award. That in itself is something to brag about. He could live off that alone for a few years.

Adam Levine walks up to the microphone and taps it once, “This thing on?” he says and the crowd laughs politely, the section up front too wracked with nerves to laugh for long, but cognizant of the ever-present cameras.

“The most prestigious award, every year we recognize the album that changes lives. We recognize the hard work and the artistry that sets the bar for other albums. We take a moment to remind ourselves why music is universal, why music connects us as humans when we are separated by culture, or language, or religious views. We choose one album to honor for reminding us why music forces us to feel and think and push boundaries. This year, for Album of the Year, your nominees are…”

Zayn’s legitimately on the edge of his seat. His hands are in his lap and his fingers won’t stop twitching. Adam reads out the nominees in that dramatic fashion that Zayn hates, though Adam probably picked it up from television producers on the Voice. Everything has to be dramatic with them.

 _Just cut to the chase_ , Zayn thinks desperately. There’s no way he’s going to win this award, he didn’t even write a speech, but he wants to be put out of his misery. He has an ounce of hope that he might win and the hope tap dances on his stomach, scaring the butterflies already nestled in well there.

“And your winner,” Adam says, using that stupid drawn out voice again. There’s a special place in hell for those people, “for the 2017 Album of the Year…” _oh my God,_ Zayn thinks, _are you fucking serious right now?_ “is MR. ZAYN MALIK!”

Are you fucking serious right now?

He blinks.

Blinks again.

He blinks one more time and feels the now familiar butt of Rihanna’s elbow. She pushes him out of his seat, plants a huge kiss on his cheek, and pushes him toward the stage with a small smack to his arse. People stop to clap him on the back on his way up, people he doesn’t know, people he does know and doesn’t care for. The stairs look daunting this time.

He steps onstage and almost can’t grip the trophy because his palms are sweating so hard. Adam gives him a bro shake hug thing and leads him up to the microphone.

“I was not expecting this,” Zayn says into the microphone and he sees Kanye on the left side of the stage shaking his head and glaring like he can’t believe it either. Funnily enough, it’s that gesture that jolts him into reality. Kanye is jealous of Zayn right now. Kanye _West_ is fucking jealous of _Zayn_. What kind of world is this?

 “Oh, uh,” he starts off and pushes his thumb nail into the pad of his forefinger to give him something to focus on, “Are you sure you called the right name? Because I can go sit back down again, Rihanna smells really good.”

He’s tempted to make another forgettable speech and thank his musicians and Louis, but that lonely man who holed up in his studio for months trying to chase the demons out of his skull and sew his heart back together one music note at a time—that man makes a stand and it’s him who speaks to the millions of eyes watching.

“Earlier this year I was in a really bad place.” Zayn looks down at the Grammy in his hand to avoid looking at the audience, “And then something happened that just set me off and suddenly Don Johnson and I had thirty songs, and I thought well, I guess I’ll record and release these songs. It means the world and more that you’ve found meaning in them and enjoyed them. If you’ve heard this album, you know me. So, thank you so much. Thanks to my family and friends, and as always thank you to my fans who’ve stuck with me through everything. Have a great night, everybody.”

The end of his speech meets with a wall of applause. Harry is on his feet clapping with tears streaming down his face, and those around him follow suit until Zayn’s looking at the whole room on their feet in a standing ovation, and he’s in awe, overwhelmed.

His eyes find Rihanna and she winks at him. Against his will, his eyes dart to his left, towards backstage, where they find Liam still backstage after accepting the last award, and lock together with his. In that moment Zayn feels the most vulnerable he’s ever felt in his entire life, including the speech he gave not thirty seconds ago. Liam looks at him like he sees everything in his soul and every thought he’s ever had. It makes Zayn’s skin crawl. Zayn looks away before he can do something stupid like give his feelings away.

He leaves the stage the opposite direction from where Liam’s standing while the crowd is still uproariously cheering. 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zayn and Liam have a talk

 

Ten minutes and too many pictures later, he slips away with directions to the theater actor’s bathroom backstage. He’s using the urinal when the door creaks open. There’s no mirror to see behind him, but Zayn knows it’s Liam that just walked in – maybe it’s the lack of footsteps, maybe the smell of his favorite cologne mixed in with that _Liam_ smell, but Zayn knows it in his gut.

He finishes up his business and walks to the sink on his right, purposefully not looking, not wanting the confirmation that this situation is happening.

“Er, hi.”

He pauses for a fraction of a second while washing his hands. Zayn doesn’t reply, but he does look up. Liam looks better than ever. They haven’t been this close to each other since the awkward meeting with management where they tried to talk him out of quitting the band. Pictures and videos do not do this new Liam justice.

Zayn shakes the excess water off his hands, looking for the paper towel dispenser. It’s behind Liam’s fat head. Of course it is, because this is one of those days. He strides over to the dispenser and Liam almost flinches, like he’s set to attack him or something. Zayn rolls his eyes and pulls two paper towels out of the dispenser so hard that it almost breaks.

“So, uh, congrats on Album of the Year,” Liam tries again to Zayn’s silence, “That’s sick.”

Zayn feels like Medusa or a basilisk or something—Liam should be stone or dead or somehow visibly affected by the anger Zayn’s directing at him.

His mum did try to raise him better than this, and that’s the only reason he grits out, “Thanks.”

He moves toward the door, done with this entire situation ready to sink into his hotel bed for a couple days, only to be blocked by muscles wrapped in a grey suit. “And congratulations on R&B album too,” Liam says like because Zayn acknowledged the last thing he said they’re going to have a conversation now or something, “It truly is an epic album. Made me cry like a baby.”

Fuck. No.

Liam isn’t supposed to listen to Zayn’s bare soul and then compliment him on his pain and anger all the while using Zayn’s most embarrassing and revealing song to make political statements that he can’t back up. That is not going to happen on Zayn’s watch. Just, just no. Something in him cracks a little bit, and the levy holding back the tsunami waves of anger, hurt, disappointment, betrayal, everything Liam’s ever made him feel over the course of the last eight years comes barreling out and Zayn doesn’t have time to look for a plaster to cover the crack. He welcomes the crack.

He balls up the paper towels still in his hands and throws them as hard as he can at the bin. He misses, “Aren’t you going to congratulate me for winning Song of the Year?” His voice is ice.

Familiar as his own hand, Zayn watches Liam’s face twist into its confused state, “But that was my category,” Liam talks to him like he’s five and fuck that noise, Zayn hates condescension and Liam very well knows that, “You’re supposed to say congratulations to me on that win. That’s how polite conversation works.”

Zayn overcomes his annoyance at the condescension to put a mysterious smirk on his face. “But did you really win that, though?” He tilts his head, some of his hair falling into his eyes, “Are you sure?”

“I distinctly recall them calling my song and making a speech,” Liam says, crossing his arms over his chest, “so yeah, Zaynie, I think I did win.”

Zayn flinches at the old, beloved nickname. He’s not ‘Zaynie’ anymore. He’s ‘Zee’ or ‘Zed’ or sometimes ‘Donald K. Johnson,’ but he’s definitely not ‘Zaynie’ any longer. Zaynie is a pathetic boy, closeted and white washed against his will. Zayn is Donald K. Johnson now, a songwriter and a damn good one at that. There’s a reason half the music industry wants to record one of his songs: they’re fucking good.

He wrings his hands, getting rid of whatever water is leftover and turns to look at Liam straight on, “So you struggled to find just the right words for the bridge and you considering using F minor before you realized that it would make the song too dark?” Zayn asks calmly, but lethally, remembering well the issues he came across writing the song, the way only the true creator of the song would know. He continues on to Liam’s blank face, “You had the chorus come to you in a wine-induced dream, did you Liam?”

He doesn’t give Liam a chance to respond, now riding high on his righteous anger, “No, because you didn’t write it!” The last part comes out as a yell and Zayn thinks it feels good seeing the shocked look on Liam’s ugly face.

“You took a song not meant for you, recorded it, and decided to make a mockery of _my_ song and call it a movement for gay people. How fucking hypocritical, Liam. How fucking dare you go out there and use the song _I_ wrote about a _man_ and further your own homophobic agenda—“

“What are you talking about ‘homophobic agenda?’”

Zayn doesn’t listen, though, it feels too damn good to finally get this all out—it feels too good to go off on Liam.

“I told you I was gay and you laughed at me,” Zayn says showing a bit of his pain through the veneer, against his will. “You laughed at me being gay and now, what, you’re the new Macklemore? That makes me sick.”

He hadn’t noticed that he’d walked closer and closer to Liam in his anger. Liam’s back presses against the side of the stall and Zayn’s chest is almost touching his. He takes a close look at Liam and another avenue of thought occurs to him. He’s going to make him eat his words from that speech tonight.

“Do you have any idea what it’s like, Liam? To have feelings for a man? Someone you aren’t supposed to? Have you ever wanted to kiss someone so badly, but couldn’t because you couldn’t even tell them you like men? Have you ever had to worry about your sexuality affecting your career? Other people’s careers? I worried every day that my sexuality would cost us the band—and look, it did. And you’re the new savior of the gays? I bet you haven’t ever even kissed another guy.”

Liam licks his lips before he speaks, desperate to prove Zayn wrong about him, “I kissed you.”

And Zayn can’t deny that, but, “A peck on the lips while we were wrestling doesn’t count.” Zayn moves a fraction of an inch closer and suddenly he’s pressed up against Liam. He tells himself it’s to intimidate Liam, to make him feel threatened, to shove the seriousness of the issues onto him. “I’m not talking about a peck, Liam. I’m talking tongues in each other’s mouths, teeth clashing, stubble burn, holding your groin away from their hips so they don’t know you’re hard —really kissing a _man_.”

Liam’s Adam’s apple disappears for a second before he answers a simple, “No.”

“Hmm,” Zayn says, finding his traitorous eyes looking at Liam’s lips, “Didn’t see that one coming. You’re making some big statement and you can’t back it up. At all. You’re full of hot air. Always have been.”

“So kiss me,” Liam’s eyes travel down to Zayn’s mouth, “Show me what I’m missing.”

Zayn’s shocked, but he doesn’t hesitate. He reaches across the short distance and touches his lips softly to Liam’s. When Liam doesn’t back away in disgust, Zayn decides to give him what he asked for. Liam breathes into his mouth, “I thought we weren’t talking about a peck.”

He’s going to really show him. His right hand comes up to rest on the back of Liam’s head, his thumb going to his jawline. Zayn pushes his lips open with his tongue and makes himself at home. Liam pushes back. He may have never kissed a man, but he has been issued a challenge by Zayn and he never backs down.

Liam responds beautifully to Zayn’s explorations and Zayn stops thinking of it as an argument, a competition, and just feels it down to his gut. His left hand slips under Liam’s jacket and lands on his hip, his thumb making small circles on his hip bone.

Still pressed up against Liam, Zayn moves that left hand up to Liam’s head and pushes his hips against Liam’s, determined to get him to cry off. To his surprise, Zayn finds Liam as aroused as he is, the hard evidence resting in the crook of Zayn’s hip. Zayn smiles against Liam’s lips and kisses him softly on the cheek, the ear, the neck until he reaches his birthmark where he starts to suck the skin, tasting the sweat on his tongue.

“Have you ever had another man’s cock up against yours?” Zayn murmurs into Liam’s neck, moving his hips in small circles, just enough to drive Liam crazy by the way his hips respond in jerks.

Liam moans against Zayn’s neck, his hips stuttering. Zayn pushes a thigh between Liam’s to get more friction and Liam quietly whimpers. Zayn sticks his right hand up and under Liam’s dress shirt, and yeah, those muscles have only gotten bigger as he’s grown. His thumb brushes Liam’s nipple and his whole body jerks against Zayn’s. Zayn can’t unlearn something like that. The enormity of how bad of an idea this is hits Zayn like a truck, but Liam’s moaning and Zayn’s so, so hard. He’s lost whatever point he was trying to prove.

Zayn places another open mouth kiss on Liam’s lips, teasing his tongue at the edge of Liam’s cupid bow. His nose nudges Liam’s, “Have you ever sucked a cock, Liam?” he asks across the millimeters. Liam makes a high pitched whining sound in his throat right up against Zayn’s neck, grinding his hips harder and harder into Zayn’s until he thinks he might explode right here on this bathroom stall door. Liam’s shaking against him now and Zayn feels those big hands thread through his hair, pulling tightly.

Suddenly Zayn’s not in complete control of the kiss. Liam’s hands force his mouth against Liam’s, like he’s trying to steal Zayn’s breath and succeeding at it. Feeling his eyes roll into his head, Zayn revels in the pleasure. He never thought he’d know what it is to be kissed by Liam like this. In the back of his teenaged mind, he thought he might one day get a ‘just to make sure I don’t like guys’ kiss from Liam where he pulled off ten seconds into it and Zayn would have to hide his bulge along with his dignity. Instead, Zayn’s here in Liam’s embrace with a dare on his tongue, “Suck my cock.”

It’s an order and a dare all in one and Liam responds like Zayn knows that Liam would respond. He falls to his knees, his face sliding down the front of Zayn’s torso, placing butterfly kisses on his descent until he reaches the top of Zayn’s trousers and looks up with those big brown eyes under those long lashes and licks his lips. He’s pure determination and arousal.

Zayn places both hands on the stall in front of him, bracing himself as he feels his knees weaken before Liam’s even gotten a hand on his belt.

Liam’s hands shake as they go for Zayn’s belt, but his eyes don’t leave Zayn’s and for someone who Zayn knows has never been in this particular situation before, Liam tackles it with grace, head on and full of fire.

His belt comes undone quickly and those bear paws of Liam’s hesitate over the button on his trousers until Zayn starts to worry that he won’t go any farther, that Zayn pushed him too far. Then, Liam, still the brave idiot, slowly, slowly glacially slowly pulls the zipper down and he’s not _scared_ he’s teasing and Zayn can’t help the smile that spreads across his face or the groan that bubbles up from his throat.

Millennia later, Zayn’s trousers drop to the ground at his feet and Liam pushes the bottom of his dress shirt up to get a better view of his red briefs. Zayn feels self-conscious with Liam’s nose literally in his pubes. He looks up from the floor and looks down to his briefs and back up, silently asking permission which is such a _Liam_ thing to do even after Zayn commanded that he suck his cock, that Zayn can only nod and put one hand on Liam’s cheek to guide him to Zayn’s dick.

Liam noses it through the red cotton, seemingly intrigued by the wet spot until Zayn loses patience and murmurs a quiet, “Get on with it already. I’m dying here.”

“I’ll get on with it when I feel like it, Zaynie, and not a second before,” his mouth says, but his hands are reaching into his briefs and yanking them down. Liam kitten licks the tip of his head, and Zayn allows it because who wouldn’t be terrified of putting a penis in their mouth when they hadn’t ever thought about it before this exact moment? His hand, still on Liam’s cheek, pulls him in closer.

Through his eyelashes, Liam catches his eyes again before putting the head completely in his mouth. Zayn almost comes right then. He tries to take too much down at once and chokes. Zayn pulls him off with his fingers in his hair, “Go slow at first, okay, babe? Takes practice, yeah?”

Liam looks up at him with determination screaming from his face and Zayn remembers back to the X-Factor when he saw that face more than he saw Liam’s smile. Liam is not a quitter. Liam gets things done with sheer will and perseverance. So Zayn is not surprised when he takes too much in again a second later and chokes again.

Zayn barely holds onto the thread of reality as Liam’s hot, wet, mouth is wrapped around his cock, but he still manages to find the headspace to know this isn’t how it should go, “Hold the base, and jerk me there while you take the head in your mouth.”

Liam pops off completely, stares at Zayn’s cock like it’s something to be tamed and then tries again, wrapping his big hand around Zayn’s dick.

This time it works for both of them and soon enough what little cognizance Zayn still had of reality disappears and it’s just Liam, Liam, _Liam_ and then there’s a white light behind his eyes and he’s coming harder than he’s ever come before with no time to give a warning.

Liam wipes his mouth and Zayn pulls him back up by the lapels. Liam’s still hard in his trousers, sporting a pretty large bulge and Zayn’s mouth waters. Liam’s fingers card into Zayn’s hair and he drags him in for another kiss.

This kiss is different. Liam takes charge and moves his mouth slowly against Zayn’s. His hips shift until they are pressed up against Zayn’s again and he feels the bitter reminder that Liam did not get off in their encounter. Keeping the kiss as slow as Liam began it, Zayn reaches for Liam’s belt. Liam doesn’t flinch.

Zayn’s fingers undo Liam’s belt and reach into his trousers to grab his dick. He can’t wait to make Liam feel good, to see how preciously Zayn would touch him, how reverently and achingly Zayn would make him come. Just as he begins to slowly rub him through his pants, something vibrates against the back of his hand.

“Your phone’s ringing mate,” Zayn whispers into Liam’s ear, and he has to repeat himself when it’s clear that Liam did not understand what he said. “Your phone,” he says.

When Liam still doesn’t respond, Zayn digs his unoccupied left hand into his front pocket and pulls out his iPhone. Zayn sees _Sophia_ on the caller ID and frowns.

“It’s your girlfriend,” he says, ready to throw the phone back into the pocket and keep going. Instead, Liam grabs for it.

“Are you really going to answer that?”

“I have to,” Liam says, breathlessly.

“No you don’t,” Zayn squeezes him through his briefs, like the hardness of Liam under his hand is proof that he’s not unaffected, that Zayn’s not the only one who’s world has been rocked.

“I have to answer this.”

“So once again you’re going to pick her over me? Fucking cool, Liam, I get it.”

He drags his hand out of Liam’s trousers and even his hand looks a bit sad. He quickly pulls his own trousers up, eager to not be exposed at all anymore.

Liam pushes back from Zayn, trying to re-buckle his belt with one hand, the still ringing phone in the other, “Obviously you don’t because you don’t even know me anymore.”

“I know you liked this,” Zayn points between them, “but you’re right. I don’t know you. Wouldn’t care to now,” his voice cracks on the lie, “so you can just fuck off like you’re so good at doing.”

“Oh because the thousands of calls and texts I sent to you after that fight were so well received?” Liam says bitterly, “I can take a fucking hint, Zayn. You wanted absolutely nothing to do with me and you broke up the band because of it. I don’t have much pride, Zayn, but I do have enough to know when I’m not wanted.”

“Not wanted? I always wanted you by my side,” Zayn cries, afraid he’s giving too much away. “But I told you the biggest secret I have and you _laughed_ at me, Liam. Do you have any idea what you did to me?”

Liam crosses the room back over to Zayn and puts both hands on either side of Zayn’s face, “I didn’t know you were serious. I swear to God, I didn’t think it was anything other than a joke. You were so adamant back then that you were straight. You had Perrie, you had girls falling all over you and you seemed to enjoy it. Then, you just kind of blurted it out, Zayn. There was no lead up, you just threw it out there and I didn’t know you were serious until we were in a meeting with management that you wanted to quit the band and it was because of me. By the time I realized what I’d done to you, you wanted nothing to do with me.”

Zayn feels a traitorous tear roll down his cheek, “You broke my heart. You were the first person I told, and you broke my heart.”

Liam looks deep into Zayn’s eyes, “From the bottom of my heart, I am so sorry. I never meant to hurt you and I never meant to have us be apart for three years, alright? I would never want that. You were then, and you still are, my favorite person in the world. My best friend.”

Neither of them speaks for a few minutes. Zayn looks at Liam’s face and notices a few differences. His hair is a bit messed up from Zayn’s fingers earlier and his cheeks have beard burn on them. It’s still the same old face, same old perfect face. This is still Liam and Zayn still loves him more than anything.

“Do you want to know why I picked that song of Donald K. Johnson’s?” Liam asks, comfortable in Zayn’s personal space. “Because I wanted to do something for you. You wouldn’t speak to me, you wouldn’t have anything to do with me, but I wanted you to know that I was sorry. So I released that song with all its male pronouns as an apology to you.”

Zayn’s breath catches in his chest.

“I obviously messed that up too,” Liam mumbles.

Zayn shakes his head, and they sit in silence for a minute, two minutes, while Zayn thinks. He tries to erase the clouded emotions behind everything that went down those months ago, tries to see it another way. He hears the radio announcer’s voice again and this time he doesn’t hear the blood rushing in his ears, he hears the words, the meanings slot together and he more than _hears_. He understands.

“You didn’t mess that up,” he speaks into the silence, “I was too angry to see it the way you meant it to be seen. I was too focused on my anger to take it the way you meant it. But now that I do? That’s pretty beautiful, Liam.”

Liam places a small kiss on Zayn’s lips, “Thank you.”

And then his phone rings again. The moment completely breaks.

“You better get that this time,” Zayn says, nodding down at Liam’s trouser pants where the bulge has disappeared and the phone migrated to at some point in their argument.

“Yeah,” Liam says, releasing Zayn’s head and stepping back to answer the call. He turns his back to Zayn and so doesn’t see when Zayn sneaks out. It’s one thing coming to an understanding about _that_ part of the fight, but Zayn still hates Sophia and it still hurts to hear Liam talk to her.

He pauses at the bathroom door, pushing it open slowly so Liam won’t hear, and turns to look back at him. He’s arguing quietly into the phone. He doesn’t go to any after parties that night, but he does go straight to bed.

 


	5. Chapter 5

The Houston stage lights seem brighter than lights should be. Should they really be this blinding? Zayn sings proudly into the microphone in front of him. He likes having it on a stand, he likes the way it catches him when he throws his entire voice into it—he needs something steady, fixed, when he’s singing about such emotional topics. He loves that he has no one else’s creative streak to consider but his own.

Two days after the Grammy’s, Zayn is glad that he didn’t allow himself much free time between the awards show and the talk show rounds in the States. It’s left him very little time to think about _things_ and he very much likes it that way.

He had to take a sleeping pill after the Grammy’s so that he wouldn’t be up all night thinking, and the next day Louis had him on back to back shows taping so that by the time he made it to the airport for his flight to Houston to begin his meagre tour, he was so flat exhausted that his brain can’t even function, let alone analyze that meeting in the bathroom.

As much as Zayn loves freedom of performance, he misses the lads. He’s not used to 100% of the attention being on him. He’s heard for years that he doesn’t have a great stage presence, he knows this, and there’s more pressure and responsibility on him to make sure his fans have a great time. If Sia can do it, he can too.

“Houston,” he says out to the arena, “Have you had a good time these past few songs?”

More cheering. He takes that as a yes.

“I’d apologize about the songs being so depressing, but they’re honest and true, and well, if it’s good enough for Album of the Year, it’s good enough for you lot, right?” The crowd goes completely crazy, Zayn’s amazed at the sheer screams that are just for him, not Niall grabbing his crotch on stage, not Louis shaking that plump arse for the camera, not Liam doing the splits. Just him, and this incredible album.

“But, hey, let’s take a break from the emo for a second, yeah?” He says out to the crowd he can’t see because of the blinding lights, “I want to play something a bit happier for you, but I’m going to need some help. Think you guys can help me out?”

By the wall of noise, he assumes that they can, “Yes, you guys seem quite loud enough, I think it’ll work. Now, I’m going to need you to clap your hands on this song—like this,” _clapclapclapclap_.

He can tell the exact second they figure out what song he’s about to play by the increase in volume. “That’s right, that’s right, I’m going to play ‘Pivot’ for you!”

His band launches into the song and Zayn falls into it—the presence of his brothers so tangible on the stage, like they’re up there with him comfortingly close. When he gets to the chorus, he hears a familiar voice over his inner ears. He turns around, still singing, and sees Harry there, guitar in hand, singing the harmony with him, a stupid fedora on his head like this is 2014 and the other lads are just in the toilets.

Zayn feels his face break into a grin, a rush of adrenaline hitting him, but not the scary kind. Harry’s here and nothing bad can happen to him now. He’s performed most of the set and it’s gone surprisingly well and now he’s not alone anymore. They sing together, Harry doing some of his stupid concert moves and Zayn feels like he’s seventeen again and just embarking on a journey that will change his life.

They sing an extra chorus because they’re both so happy to be performing together and then the song ends.

“Harry Styles, ladies and gentlemen,” he waves an arm to Harry who bows deeply and launches into a hug that almost topples Zayn onto the stage floor. The audience hollers and Zayn refuses to let Harry go.

“What are you doing here, mate?” He whispers for Harry’s ears only.

Harry squeezes him harder, “I thought you might want a friend the first time you have to be out here by yourself. It’s a lot harder than being with a group.”

Zayn smiles into Harry’s neck, a wave of gratitude sweeping through him, “Thanks. I’m so glad you came.”

He punctuates his statement with a manly clap on the shoulder.

“Sure, sure, didn’t have anything else on,” Harry says cheekily, those green eyes twinkling. “Actually,” he adds while the crowd is still screaming, “Liam told me I might need to come.”

Zayn feels panic well up in his stomach before Harry reassures him, “He didn’t say why. Of course he wouldn’t say why, but he always _knows,_ you know?”

Suddenly the past two days of neat repression blow up in Zayn’s face and at the worst possible time. He’d like to blame Harry, but really, he’s just the messenger. Liam sent Harry to check up on him. Liam thought that Zayn might need a friend on his first performance without the lads. Liam somehow coerced Harry into coming, not that Harry would have needed coercing, but to do so with no _reason_ other than ‘Zayn might need you’ must have taken some aggressive negotiating.

Liam. It always comes back to Liam somehow.

Harry starts speaking to the audience while Zayn gathers himself, but now that part of his façade cracked, the rest is precarious.

Liam apologized in that bathroom. Liam took responsibility for how he behaved. Liam released a song for Zayn to try to patch things up. All Zayn did was release an album that focused on how much he hates Liam. Really, looking at it like this, Zayn hasn’t really done anything on his side to reconcile them. After that encounter in the bathroom, and the past three years of misery without Liam, he’d like to reconcile.

Another one of those ideas starts to creep into his brain, the ones that wind up with him in the best boy band in the world, or standing up to receive a Grammy for Album of the Year, or sobbing on his bedroom floor with a broken heart and no best friend. The kind of idea that is big and has many unforeseen consequences that he doesn’t know when he’s going through with the idea. The kind that can, and has in the past, gone either way. The kind of idea he usually says “fuck it,” to and does it anyway.

Yeah, this might get him in trouble with royalties or something, but that’s not going to stop Zayn.

“Thank you, Harry,” Zayn says to his friend, “I’ll see you after, yeah?”

Harry beams at him, seeing he’s recovered, “Course you will, mate. Thanks for having me, Houston!”

“Actually, Harry,” He says as Harry starts to head for backstage, “can I borrow your guitar for a minute? I’ll give it back, I promise.”

He hears voices in his inner ear asking what the hell he thinks he’s doing, but he’s used to ignoring voices these days. He can feel the confusion coming from the backing band behind him. As far as they know, Zayn doesn’t play so why would he need the guitar? This isn’t in the script for the show. Zayn basks in the mischief. He half expects Louis to whisper encouragement to him.

“Sure,” Harry hands it over, kissing Zayn on the cheek and leaves.

Zayn feels the good idea vibrating under his skin and his fingers familiarize themselves with the guitar beneath them.

“That was supposed to be my last song, Houston,” he hears the audience moan, “but, because I like you so much, I’m going to give you another surprise. I’m going to play a cover for you, and I think you’ll like it.”

He strums the opening chords to ‘Break Down the Door’ and most of the audience seems to catch on, even though he plays it much slower than Liam’s version of the song. He plays it slowly like it’s meant to be played. Liam’s version is a bit sped up and is angry, like he missed the nuance of sadness under the obvious anger. So Zayn will show him how it’s meant to be played, how he meant it to be played _for_ Liam and not by him. And Zayn knows that Liam will get it. Maybe no one else will, maybe the world will think he’s challenging Liam or whatever, but Liam will take it as the apology that Zayn means it. This is for Liam, not the world anyhow.

He plays the song, his rudimentary guitar skills on display, and he pours his heart out onstage. He thinks of the first time he rode a plane after his fight with Liam and he wanted him in the next seat over so badly. He thinks of all the nights on the road, when they’d play a gig and disappear into the studio to muck around and write all kinds of terrible songs. He thinks of the time he got the flu and was so miserable that Liam brought him Harry’s chicken soup and curled up into bed with him to watch a marathon of “the Inbetweeners,” and then got sick the next week. He thinks of those moments where they achieved something that many people across many lifetimes don’t get the opportunity to achieve and he has Liam standing right by his side, usually an arm slung around him, and a dopey grin on his face. He thinks of those moments, the ones that he kept away from for so long because they _hurt_. Because he didn’t want to think of Liam as such an integral part of his happiness and not have him there, sitting next to Zayn.

He wants Liam back in his life and it took all of this to get there. He loves Liam and now that part of their issues are cleared up, he wants to share his life with Liam again. He wants to text him when he wakes up to tell him about his dream that Niall ate Godzilla. He wants to sit next to Liam instead of Rihanna at all the awards shows, no matter how good she smells. Most importantly, he wants to be able to have all five of them in the same room together. He wants his boys back, and with no Liam, it’s just not the same and Zayn can’t kid himself any longer.

The song ends and Zayn goes temporarily deaf from the noise the audience makes. He figures that song will be online in an hour, tops.

.

.

Out of habit, he and Harry don’t discuss the elephant in the room until they are alone in Zayn’s hotel room. Zayn lets them in, throws his coat on the chair next to the door and walks over to the mini-bar.

“So?” Harry says behind him, following Zayn’s lead and heading for the alcohol.

“So, what?” Zayn says, knowing full well what Harry wants to discuss and trying to delay it anyway.

Harry calls him on it, “You know what, Zayn. You just played Liam’s song for the entire world.”

“Not the _entire_ world,” Zayn weakly tries to protest, “just Houston.”

“It’s not just Houston and you know it,” Harry grabs the mini bottle of vodka and a can of coke and opens them both into an empty glass, “You wanted him to see that.”

“I did,” Zayn agrees, choosing the whiskey since Harry’s clearly called dibs on the vodka.

“For what purpose, Zayn? You’re just trying to provoke him. It’s hard enough keeping the peace as it is, and that’s without you two seeing or speaking to each other.”

Zayn’s silent as he mixes his drink, trying to flip his shoes off at the same time. Harry’s not stupid and when Zayn’s quiet for just a touch too long, he scoffs.

“Oh, so you have seen each other,” he says, an eyebrow going up, “go on, then, tell me what happened.”

Somehow Zayn doesn’t think Harry has any idea of what happened. Zayn almost blushes remembering what happened. He stirs his drink and then walks to the white couch, “what makes you think something happened?”

“Because I know you,” Harry says and damn if he isn’t right, “So, what happened? I assume it was at the Grammy’s. That’s the only time you’ve been in the same area.”

“Yeah, backstage,” Zayn sighs, sinking into the couch.

“After your big win?” Harry leaves his can, the vodka, a freshly squeezed lime carcass and the spoon he used to stair it all on the bar. Hurricane Harry strikes again.

“Yeah. I was angry at first, you know. Mad that he accepted my award and I gave him a piece of my mind, and—“ Zayn cuts himself off, draining the last of his drink and getting up to get another one. He’s going to need a few more.

“We talked. We sorted something out. Not all of it, but the biggest thing, I think.”

Harry spreads himself out on the couch, his long legs taking up the entire thing. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Are you just dying to know, Harry?” Zayn tries to derail him, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. Vulnerable.

“I’m not Louis,” Harry says, “I can understand wanting to keep some things to myself, even when it comes to the five of us. It’s between you and Liam, but if you want an impartial ear, you have mine. Both of them, even.”

Zayn smiles despite himself, “Thanks, Harry. I know.”

He doctors up another drink, “Let’s get proper sloshed and then maybe I’ll tell you about it. Sound good?” He doesn’t have many opportunities for these conversations with their schedules now.

Harry smiles over at him, dimples in all their glory, “Best bring me another, then, if we’re going to do this.”

A couple hours later, they’re both in the hotel bed, under the covers in a make shift fort that Harry swore would make them both feel better.  He’s half right, but Zayn thinks it has more to do with the alcohol and a friendly face.

“You know they say that curly hair is straight, like, in the scalp before it comes out and that straight hair is curly in the scalp before it comes out? Sick, isn’t it?” Zayn’s fingers pull on one of Harry’s curls and it springs back into place.

“Wicked,” Harry agrees, his tattoos prominent in the glare off the white sheets. They sit in companionable silence for a while and Zayn loves that even when they aren’t in the band anymore, that they don’t see each other every second of every day, they still know each other well enough to not feel obligated to fill the silence. Especially Harry, a born charmer, he’s always _on,_ always smiling cherubically at a camera—Zayn savors the knowledge that Harry doesn’t have to be the media’s _Harry Styles_ when he’s here. They are just Zayn and Harry, two music geeks sitting drunkenly together under a fort made of borrowed sheets. It’s a precious gift that he doesn’t take for granted.

Harry’s hand falls on his shoulder and he leans into him, putting his curly head down on Zayn’s chest. It’s nice, Zayn thinks, to have comfort with someone. Sometimes, without the lads around, he misses touching. He misses reaching a hand out and connecting with someone he cares about. He misses the anchoring feeling of a hand on his back, or just the press of one of the lads’ thighs against his on a comfy couch.

He likes to be alone, always has, but Zayn hates being lonely. And there’s a huge difference. With the lads, he had but to turn around and call out for one of them to come running. Hell, Liam was probably already sitting by his side, one arm wrapped behind him, cocooning Zayn in its warmth and safety. He has a way of knowing what Zayn needs before Zayn does.

“Harry,” he says a minute or two later. Harry’s nose nudges up on Zayn’s chest and he mumbles something unintelligible that Zayn recognizes as acknowledgement.

“Harry, I need to tell you something,” he looks up at the sheets above their heads, trying to spot patterns in the shadows, his hand softly stroking Harry’s curls like a cat, “Liam knows, and Louis knows too. But I think it’s time I told you and Niall. You’re my brothers, and I’m not scared anymore.”

Harry leans up onto his left elbow to look Zayn in the eye, sensing the seriousness of Zayn’s tone. “Zayn, you know you can tell me anything.”

“I really hope so,” Zayn says, his voice shaking a bit.

“What is it?” Harry asks, so so tenderly. His big hand comes up to rest on Zayn’s face, thumb stroking his cheek in the same way his mother used to comfort him as a kid,  “What’s got you so worked up, Zee?”

Zayn whispers quietly and Harry catches the words with the hand still resting on his cheek, “I’m gay.”

“Oh,” Harry’s eyes grow as big as saucers, “Okay.”

He doesn’t say anything else and Zayn tries not to panic. To his surprise, Harry’s still enlarged eyes soften and take on a knowing look. He smiles, kisses him on the cheek and rests his head back on Zayn’s chest.

“Tell me about how you fell in love with Liam.”

Zayn breathes a sigh of relief and wishes he could have fooled just one person, really.

“I see you aren’t surprised,” he says instead.

“Once the gay puzzle piece is thrown out there, the whole picture comes together,” he says and Zayn nods because that does make sense. He’s surprised Liam didn’t figure it out, “So he didn’t take it well when you told him you loved him?”

Zayn exhales heavily and a few of Harry’s curls are blown back at the force, “Well, I didn’t actually get to that part,” he tells those same curls.

“What do you mean?”

“We kind of got sidetracked on the gay thing. It didn’t end well,” Zayn’s not really sure how to succinctly explain everything.

Harry stays quiet, like he doesn’t want to scare Zayn from opening up and Zayn falls right into his trap.

“I was so angry, Harry,” he says softly, “you know how angry I was. You didn’t know why, but you could feel it. He broke my heart. And I didn’t know it then, but I think I broke a part of his too,” as soon as he says the words, he knows them to be true, “D did he tell you anything about our talk the other night?”

Harry mumbles, “No,” into Zayn’s chest.

“He congratulated me on my wins,” Zayn says with a chuckle, “Only fucking Liam would do that.”

“That does sound like him,” Harry agrees, “What’d you say to that?”

“I tore him a new arsehole for using my song. And you know what he said?”

“That he did it for you?” Harry guesses and Zayn’s fingers stop their unconscious petting.

“Yeah,” he says, “It took a bit for it to come out, but yeah, he told me it was his way of apologizing. We talked. It was good,” He smiles into Harry’s hair.

“So are you guys good, now?” Harry says, allowing a bit of hope to creep into his voice, “Can we be One Direction again?”

Zayn opens his mouth to tell Harry about the soul changing blow job, and he stops. He actually doesn’t want to share that. That’s Liam’s to share. “I dunno about that, Haz. We had one semi-positive talk. We aren’t exactly riding unicorns together or anything.”

Harry leans up again, looking straight into Zayn’s eyes, “You have to tell him, Zayn. You can’t start a new friendship without full disclosure.”

“How will me humiliating myself help our friendship at all?” he asks, “I already know how that conversation will go. I’ll say it. He’ll say he had no idea. I’ll say I know, but I still love him. He’ll feel really guilty and then tell me I was his best friend and he’ll always love me, just _not like that_.” Zayn feels sick to his stomach thinking of that conversation. No, no siree, Mr. Styles, he will avoid that for as long as possible.

“And how is he going to feel when he figures out you’ve written countless songs for him, a Grammy winning album of songs just for him, and you didn’t even tell him?” Zayn starts to think maybe Harry has a point, “How is he going to feel that the fan girls figured something out about his best friend that he didn’t get to know? How well do you think that conversation is going to go? Because I don’t think there’s going to be a recovery from that.”

The sickness roars in his stomach and Zayn thinks he might vomit—the exertion of the concert earlier mixed with the alcohol and this sudden, terrible guilt makes his stomach cave in on itself.

“Honestly, Zayn,” Harry puts his chin on Zayn’s chest so he can still look up at him, “You have to tell him. It doesn’t have to be right this second,” Zayn sighs audibly in relief, “but it does have to be before you can hang out again. Besides,” he adds, “We made a pact together, remember?”

“Yeah,” he says, “I remember.”

“We play enough games with the world and the fans, we don’t keep secrets from each other. Tomorrow, we’re going to call Niall and you’ll tell him. You know Niall can’t stand being the last to know. And then you’ll find time when you’re comfortable to tell Liam that you love him.”

“Fine,” Zayn mutters, giving in, “But enough talking about it for now. I’m going to fall asleep. Or vomit. Hopefully the first one.”

Harry nods his agreement and snuggles closer into Zayn, he’s always been a sleep cuddler, “Hey, Zayn,” Harry whispers against his chest, he doesn’t wait for a response, “thank you for telling me. You could have told me sooner, you knob.”

“I know,” he kisses the top of Harry’s head, still unbelievably protective of him even all these years later, “I just wasn’t ready until now.”

He feels Harry nod his head like he gets it, and hey, maybe he does. “Love you, Zayn.”

“Love you too, Hazza. G’night, babe.”

Harry falls asleep between strokes of Zayn’s fingers in his hair, his breath warm and moist on Zayn’s chest. Despite what he said earlier, Zayn can’t even think of sleep. His mind wanders in a million different dirrections.

Would Liam ever treat him normally after this? Zayn already had his heart broken before Liam even rejected him, how is he going to own up to falling in love with his best friend?

Harry’s absolutely right, and deep down Zayn knows it. For all his doe-eyed innocent looks, Harry can be very shrewd about people. He learned the hard way to not have a better eye on people’s true intentions. Zayn can’t jump back into being best friends with Liam again after two years of anger and pain and silence without telling him the whole truth.

God, not that Liam even wants to be friends again! Zayn rolls onto his side, dragging Harry up behind him to spoon, not fluttering an eye he’s so deeply asleep. Nowhere in their talk from before did Liam indicate he wanted to be mates again. It was kind of implied, really, but Zayn’s obviously read situations with Liam wrong before.

They are going to have to talk about all this. Zayn really isn’t looking forward to it. At least, he thinks while staring into the darkness of his Houston hotel room, this time he’s ready to have his heart broken. This time he goes into the conversation with all his armor intact. This time, he won’t let Liam hurt him, because he has no expectations at all.

Yeah, he thinks, Liam can’t hurt him if he has no hope.

His phone beeps on the night stand with a notification. He releases Harry to check it. Zayn looks away from the bright screen, the light hurting his eyes, and he scrambles to push the lock button to get rid of the light. It’s not until the phone sits in his hand that he gets an idea.

Before his brain can tell him it’s a bad idea, he’s dialing a number he’s had memorized for years. It’s not in his phone under a contact anymore, but he never could delete the number from his brain.

His heart thunders in his chest as he listens to the ringing in his ear. He expects the voicemail to kick in, already planning what he would say if he were brave enough to leave a message, trying to think of how to put words to every little thought that’s gone through his mind—“Are you there with her now?” to “Did you mean it when you kissed me?” to “Can we be friends again?” and finally just, “I miss you.” But the call doesn’t go to voicemail.

There’s silence on the other end, but if he strains, Zayn can hear a laughing track from a sitcom in the background. So he’s there. And he’s not saying anything. And now neither is Zayn.

The awkwardness that Zayn expects never materializes. His heart calms down just listening to the soft breaths coming from the phone. They may not be saying anything, they may be across the country –or world – for all Zayn knows, but he feels connected to Liam. He’s plugged back into Liam and he’s lit up like a Christmas tree.

He takes a deep breath and hears a yawn come from the other end of his phone. He smiles, gathering the phone and balancing it on his ear while he lies on his side, Harry a warm presence at his back, and suddenly finds himself beyond tired.

He closes his eyes. Sleep welcomes him back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we see Liam again

Truth be told, Niall takes the news the easiest, “Well of course you’re gay, Zayn, and I’m Irish. What is this obvious day?”

“If it was obvious day,” Harry says, sitting criss-cross next to Zayn on the big bed the next morning while they speak to Niall on speaker phone, “I’d tell you that you are an idiot, too.”

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re saying it is or isn’t right now,” Niall says back after a short pause and Zayn giggles a bit in relief.

Harry’s uncovered a banana from who knows where and he takes a large bite and pulls a ridiculous face. Zayn grins back at him while he addresses Niall, “So, you’re okay with it all, then?”

“O’ course,” comes from the mobile and really, Zayn ought to plug in it pretty soon or it’ll die and Louis will be very pissed off if he can’t get in touch with Zayn after yesterday’s performance, “Thought we all knew that and you just didn’t like to talk about it. Why do you think I’m always introducing you around at the clubs? Want you to meet a right nice bloke. Someone who can make you happy.”

Zayn’s smile fades a bit, “I thought you were just being a mate, and like, polite. Isn’t that the polite thing to do? Introduce someone around?”

“Well yeah,” Niall says, “but I don’t normally talk people up as much as I talk you up.”

Harry points at Zayn with his banana, “that’s right, he really doesn’t.”

Zayn glares at Harry, “Not helping.” Harry throws his hands up, nearly losing the banana.

“So, we’re all good?” Zayn asks, hoping to end this conversation.

“Unless you’ve got anymore secrets you’ve got up your sleeve,” Niall says back.

Zayn squirms in his seat on the bed, his left foot going a bit numb from sitting on it at a weird angle. He moves it out from under him, the blood flowing back into it stinging a bit, “Full disclosure?”

“Yeah?”

Harry raises his eyebrows at Zayn, silently encouraging him to tell Niall. Zayn can’t look at him fellating the banana. He has never seen something that turns him off so much, “What other secrets do you think I’m hiding?”

“I dunno, mate, they’re your secrets.”

“Apparently not,” he can’t help but mutter to himself. He steels himself to just blurt it out. Louis and Harry already know. If it doesn’t come from him, there’s no guarantee that those two won’t go tittering to Niall. One lad in One Direction can keep another’s secret, but if two know then all bets are off that they can keep the secret from the other boys. And Zayn would rather the news come from him.

“Well, Niall, I should tell you then that, um, the reason the band…” easier said than done, however, “I accidentally, um, well the thing is…”

“You’re in love with Liam and probably always have been,” Niall says bluntly, ripping off the plaster.

Zayn deflates, “Well, um, yeah.”

“It’s cool. I kinda figured that. Got a plan in place?”

Zayn swallows the extra saliva that just showed up in his mouth uninvited, “A plan?”

“Yeah,” Niall says like he’s talking about the most obvious concept in the world, “A plan to get your man.”

Harry bursts out laughing on the bed, “Yes, yes, yes, he needs a plan!”

“I do not need a plan,” Zayn says, trying very hard to suppress the urge to roll his eyes, “You two are ridiculous.”

“No, you got to have a plan, mate,” Niall says.

“He’s going to tell Liam he loves him,” Harry informs their friend, very unhelpfully.

Niall gasps, his voice going into enthusiastic mode at full speed ahead, “You are?”

“What? No,” Zayn says instinctively.

“Yes you are,” Harry pouts, “We talked about it and everything. You said you would.”

“Yeah so that we can be _friends_ , Harry, not so that we can be soul mates or whatever you two idiots are thinking about,” Zayn gets up and stalks across the room.

He scrambles madly in his bag for his charger. Yeah, he needs to charge the phone or the battery will die. He put it in this bag, right?

“But don’t you think there’s a chance—” Niall begins only to have Zayn, probably rudely, cut him off.

“No, Niall, I don’t. There’s no chance,” he looks up from scouring through his bag at Harry and the phone, “Zero chance. We. Will. Not. Be. Together. Okay?”

There’s a telling silence from the other two. If the look on Niall’s face over in Ireland looks anything like the kicked puppy expression Harry’s rocking, then he’s gone a bit too far.

“Look,” he says, feeling about three centuries old, “if I think, even for a second, that there’s a chance, then this is just going to hurt five hundred times more when it all blows up in my face, alright?”

After a beat of silence, Harry nods. He runs his hand through his curls, “Yeah, alright.”

Zayn doesn’t want to disappoint them, is the thing. He never has. It grates on him every day that the band broke up because of him. He hates being the cause of their disappointment. He hates that the frown on Harry’s face is there because of Zayn. He tries to explain a bit more, “I just… you get it right? Like, that I have to protect myself a bit, yeah?”

“Mate, we understand protecting yourself,” Niall’s tinny voice says into the room, “but we don’t think it’s necessary. I mean, well, it’s Liam, innit? And you’re Zayn. It’s meant to work out.”

“Proper written in the stars,” Harry adds cheekily.

“Seriously,” Zayn warns, his tone of voice belied by the genuine smile on his face, “no hope, you guys. Don’t let me get my hopes up.”

Harry throws the now empty banana peel in the general direction of the bin, “No promises.”

.

.

He sees it the next day.

He and Harry part ways, holding each other a little longer than usual in their good bye hug, and Zayn misses him the second his curly head ducks into the hired car. But he has his own tour to do. His own tour. Now there’s a bizarre thought.

He swallows the lump in his throat and makes his way over to his bus. They have to make it to New Orleans by mid-day. He doesn’t remember tour being this boring. He’s reached a level of professionalism where he politely greets his road crew, making sure to leave a good impression – he knows that they like to gossip, he’s heard his fair share over the years. But, Zayn’s still the same shy, slightly socially awkward, closeted guy he’s always been, and he can’t just fall into friendships with the roadies. He doesn’t trust easily after years in this business and he’s never mastered the art of appearing open when he’s not.

He catches a few more hours of sleep in his bunk, because that’s something he has always been good at. Eventually, he can’t pretend to sleep any longer and the boredom starts to become unbearable. He pulls his phone out of his trouser pocket, looking to see if he has any unread text messages.

His mum sent him a message on What’s App. He smiles into his blanket and sends a short message back, letting her know he’s doing okay. Niall posted a funny video on Instagram and Zayn watches it about five times before he clicks out of it. He’ll have to remember to tell Niall how hilarious he thought it was. He doesn’t like to leave comments publically these days, too much fodder for the fans. It always comes back to bite him somehow. No matter how innocently meant.

He’s checking the latest on twitter when his phone buzzes with a new notification – from Harry. And then suddenly from about fifty more people. He clicks on Harry’s re-tweet and sees immediately that it was originally posted by Liam.

Zayn’s heartbeat speeds up and he shakes his head, ashamed that his fingers are shaking and he can’t settle his nerves. Taking a deep breath, he looks at the tweet. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this.

 

 

What is that supposed to mean? Zayn stares at the picture as more and more replies come trickling in, most of them mentioning his name in their replies to Liam’s tweet. This is why he avoids Twitter now. Not only does he only get in trouble every single time he gets on, but everyone tries to get into his business with Liam. Like, they think their magic tweet asking why they can’t get along is going to be the catalyst to them being friends again.

And really, what the hell is that supposed to mean? That he finally figured out that Zayn is gay? Except, no, because he was the first person Zayn told. What did Liam finally figure out? Zayn ponders this for several minutes until he goes a bit mad – there are too many things it could possibly be, not that the infinite list of options is going to keep Zayn from trying to narrow it down anyway.

He’s already on Twitter, so he clicks on Liam’s name to see what else he’s been tweeting about – maybe that will lend a clue to his cryptic tweet – and his jaw drops in shock. He should have realized, of course. He knew that Liam would see his cover of “Break Down the Door,” but he never in his wildest dreams imagined he would comment on it. But there it is in black ink.

"@LiamPayne: what a beautiful performance of a beautiful song cheers mate x"

Zayn reads between the lines and sees that, yeah, Liam got his message. Liam’s not mad and Liam knows that he sent out his own version of an apology. Maybe they’re that much closer to being friends. Zayn contemplates responding to that tweet, he thinks about the consequences, knowing that it would be in magazines tomorrow if he did so – knowing that Liam’s response to the video would already be news on every major entertainment news source tomorrow morning. The tweet would still be there tomorrow, he reckons. If not, then the sentiment at least. He can always respond later. Right now, he’s terrified of saying the wrong thing and forcing them back a step.

Zayn takes a deep breath and forces himself not to call Harry. Instead, he asks how close they are to New Orleans.

“Just five minutes now, Mr. Malik,” he hears and nods, pausing a second too long to correct his new backing bassist that he should call him Zayn.

He’s such an idiot.

.

.

If tour is boring, then the highlights are the shows. The performances are so energizing that they make the rest of the time worth it.

Zayn gets his favorite kind of high on the buzz from the crowd. He’ll never be Harry or Liam, who seem to transition to another plane of existence when they perform for a live crowd, but he never would have auditioned for the X-factor if he didn’t love and crave the attention.

He goes back onstage for his encore, this time playing an R&B version of one of Ed’s songs that the audience eats up. He’s buzzing while the crew packs up the equipment to drive to the next town—they have to make it to Atlanta for tomorrow’s performance and the tour manager, Brendon, thinks they might be cutting it close.

Zayn offers to help, but Brendon makes him stay away from the crew while they work, “You’ll just be a distraction, son. Let’s get you onto the bus for some shut-eye, okay? We want you to keep this level of energy for tomorrow’s show. Really good work, tonight.”

Zayn nods and gets on the bus, knowing by now to choose his battles wisely, and really, this isn’t major enough to fight about. He looks at the X-Box, he sorts through the ten DVDs they have, and nothing jumps out at him. His hands are still shaking, his heart is still pounding and he won’t be able to sit still long enough to watch a film or try to play FIFA.

This is the point with the lads that they would either puppy pile in one bed, or go out to a club to work off the excess energy. Eventually, Liam and Zayn started using these nights to write absolutely ridiculous songs together in the studio. Those nights required them having a hotel room and the studio van with them, neither of which Zayn has.

Now that he’s opened the flood gate to Liam, though, Zayn’s thoughts get stuck on him. He opens up Twitter to see if the tweet is still there. Sure enough, he sees that tattoo looking up at him from the top of Liam’s page. There are an insane amount of favorites on it.

He doesn’t bother checking his mentions.

He just stares at that tattoo. “I figured it out.”

At the time, Liam told Zayn it was a nod to ‘You and I,’ “but it’s also kind of because I think I’ve finally figured out this fame thing, Zaynie. I’ve figured out a lot of things since we began,” he’d told Zayn right after he got the tattoo. It was on the tip of Zayn’s tongue to say that people figuring things out is just a way of growing up, but he let Liam have his philosophical sentiment.

Zayn stares at the tattoo. If that’s what it meant when he first got the tattoo, what does it mean now?

With a “Fuck it,” Zayn pulls out his camera app and snaps a picture of the black heart tattoo over his hip. He posts it to twitter with no comment before he can think better of it. Let the masses stew over that one. Liam will know what it means.

.

.

They talk in pictures after that.

Zayn wakes up in Atlanta to a DM from Liam that’s just a hand in a peace sign. It’s appropriate because just that one character sends a wave of peace over Zayn. That night before he goes to sleep, he sends back a picture of a dove.

Liam continues to send him pictures. He gets a Koala, a picture of Harry’s eyes and forehead upside down, a picture of a harmonica, the Eiffel Tower, and a hippo amongst others. Zayn sends back things he knows Liam will appreciate, along with little signs to tell him where he is. He sends a road sign off I-75 of the exit to the Georgia Dome, where they’d played back in the day, he sends a picture of a cowboy boot when he’s in Nashville. In New York City, he gets brave and sends a selfish of the Statue of Liberty holding the torch up in his nose. Liam better appreciate that one because it took forever to get the angle right.

The weeks go by with these little exchanges and Zayn doesn’t share them with anyone. He doesn’t tell his mother, even when she tells him everything Liam is up to from their last conversation. He doesn’t tell Louis when he calls to check in on the tour. He definitely doesn’t tell Niall or Harry, because he knows telling them will get his own hopes up higher.

When the Brits are just a week away, Zayn flies back to London. He takes a picture of Heathrow from the air and sends it to Liam. He gets a rapid response, Zayn squints at the screen on his iPhone for a second, trying to make out the message. It’s an olive and then a stick. No, it’s a branch.

Liam extends an olive branch.

And then Zayn breaks the rules. They can’t call a truce until they talk. Liam has to know everything. So he writes out in the DM: “Talk first.”

His heartbeat picks up and he keeps his Twitter app up so he can see when Liam answers. Sure enough, he says back, “I’d like that,” almost right away.

Zayn smiles into the airplane window. It’s good to be home.

.

.

When Zayn said they should talk before they called a truce, he really thought that would mean after the Brits. Really, it’s not like they would be able to talk in a room full of people and journalists and cameras.

So he is completely taken by surprise when he runs into Liam at M&S at 9:37pm three nights before the Brits. He needs beer and honestly, Marks & Spencer’s is the closest shop to him. He’s been there before without any fans catching him. The trick is to go really fast and not give them time enough to talk themselves into approaching him.

This night, there aren’t a lot of other shoppers to worry about. It’s on the outskirts of London and there are always people around, but he doesn’t think the seventy year old lady in the cheese aisle is going to recognize him. He’s walking to the back of the store to pick out the beer when he sees out of the corner of his eyes there’s another bloke doing the same.

Now that he’s not in One Direction, a lot of guys have come around to appreciating him, so it’s not unusual to have straight male fans. They’re a lot less likely to bother him unless they have a sister or girlfriend they care deeply about.

He picks up a six pack and is about to turn away, when the bloke’s beanie catches his eye. Zayn recognizes the floral patterned beanie and the moment he does, he recognizes the lad wearing it. He can’t see his face, and he’s wearing trackies and a large sweater, but Zayn knows that body.

“That’s my hat,” he blurts out.

Liam turns to look at him, the surprise evident on his face, “You left it at my house and didn’t come back for it. So I adopted him.”

“Him?” Zayn asks.

Liam picks up the beer he’d been staring at for a little bit too long, “Yeah, little guy felt abandoned.”

“Fine,” Zayn says, “but only because I think I still have a few of your shirts.” False, he knows for sure that he has six shirts, two sweaters, two pairs of joggers, and three snap backs that belong to Liam.

“Mate, don’t be hypocritical,” Liam says with a gleam in his eye, “most of your closet is things you’ve taken from the lads and me and then conveniently forgotten were once someone else’s.”

“That’s not…” Zayn tries to protest on principal, “Well, okay yeah that’s true.” He feels his face burn from the blush that’s taken over.

“Don’t worry. We always found it endearing,” Liam reassures him.

They stand there in the beer aisle awkwardly for a minute before they both try to speak at once.

“Hey, mate—“

“Liam, can we—“

Zayn feels the blush intensify, “You go first.”

Liam looks down, the beer under his arm now, “I was just hoping that we could go have that talk now.”

He looks up and meets Zayn’s eyes, a hopeful note in them that bolsters Zayn. Yeah, he definitely can’t live without this man in his life. He’ll take friendship. That’s better than nothing, better than enemies, and better than strangers. The spirit of Harry whispers into his ear _tell him you love him, you have to be honest, we never lie to each other_ and Zayn nods timidly.

“I’d like that.”

“Buy our stuff and talk on the bench outside?”

Zayn nods again and parts ways with Liam who heads to the crisps. Zayn avoids the celebrity dirt magazine by the check out and also the curious eye of the teenaged teller. He pays in cash and carries his beer outside and sits on the only bench he can see.

Before he can get his thoughts in order, Liam plops down next to him.

“So what was it like recording with Usher? How in the world did you get him to agree to be on a track?” he says.

Zayn smiles, “Easy. I told him I could get Donald K. Johnson to write a song for him.” He’s half bragging, okay, no, he’s full on bragging. Liam and Zayn have always admired Usher and Zayn’s glad he gets to point to amazing things he did without Liam. He’s proud that even though he missed Liam every second of every day, he managed to reach his dreams at the same time. He didn’t just pine for two years, he made them count. He can come back to Liam and be proud of who he is and have Liam be proud of him too.

“Yeah, that would do it,” Liam says, and Zayn can hear the hint of pride in it and it warms him up more than his pea coat can. “You’re a hot commodity these days. I’ve heard all kinds of rumors about what you had to do to get Johnson to write your entire album.”

“No one’s actually asked me to my face, you know?” He pulls out a cig and hands another over to Liam.

“Really?” Liam asks, learning forward for Zayn to light the cigarette for him, like they’ve done a thousand times.

“Yeah, and I’m kind of disappointed about it,” Zayn tells him, “I had a whole scenario cooked up about how I seduced him away from his muse and forced him to write for me while I had him tied up in my sex dungeon or something.”

“I like that you went for simplicity,” Liam says trying to hide his laugh, but not fooling Zayn, “More believable that way.”

“Right.”

“So was Usher like we imagined him?”

“Cooler. He’s like, so chill,” Zayn moves to rest his arm on the back of the bench, “He’s just relaxed and super professional. One of the fastest recording sessions I’ve had because we worked so well together. It was like he thought of a great idea, I’d add something to it, and then we’d go back and forth. Really, like, so sick, mate. The track turned out amazing.”

Liam nods seriously and they fall into a surprisingly companionable silence, like there aren’t miles to go between them. They haven’t even scratched the surface of the talk they’re supposed to be having, but Zayn’s enjoying himself so much, just basking in bantering with Liam like the past three years hadn’t happened.

“So how long have you been together, then?” Liam breaks the silence after a drag.

“Who?” Zayn asks, not following Liam’s train of thought, “Me and Usher? I wish.”

Zayn still finds it strange to discuss him liking men so casually with Liam. The last several times it’s come up have ended up with A) One Direction breaking up and B) His cock in Liam’s mouth and no resolution.

“Not Usher, you prick. You and whatever bloke you keep singing about. What’s he like?”

“Oh.” Zayn moves his arm off the back of the bench to rub the back of his neck, he inhales deeply off his cigarette, postponing the confession as long as possible, “we aren’t together.”

Liam’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, “You’re not? Why not?”

“He’s not interested in me. Look, I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“How could someone not be interested in you?” Liam says and the part that kills Zayn is that he means it so genuinely, “Does he have working eyes? Working ears? Did you fall for the male Hellen Keller?”

“Seriously, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I mean, you’re fit,” Liam could have punched him and he’d have been less surprised, “The entire world agrees that you’re bloody fit. I know for a fact you’re an excellent kisser. You’re good at cuddling, and you’re an amazing singer slash songwriter. And there’s nothing wrong with your—you know,” Liam points down at Zayn’s crotch with rosy cheeks, “What’s the problem?”

“I don’t want—he’s straight, okay?”

“Oh. Well, his loss,” They sit in stilted silence for a minute, before Liam continues on like the last few seconds of silence hadn’t happened at all, “Are you sure he’s straight? Because, mate, I think you might make straight blokes question some things, if you know what I mean.”

Zayn sighs, rubbing his eyes with his free hand, “I really, really, don’t want to talk about it, Liam. Seriously.”

Liam seems to drop it for now, and Zayn silently thanks him. The quiet doesn’t last for long when Liam breaks it once again, his voice soft and pleading.

“I would very much like to be friends again, Zaynie,” Liam says and Zayn’s heart breaks all over again, because yes, this is all he’s wanted to hear for months. Proof that even if Liam doesn’t love him like Zayn wants him to love him, that their relationship was special and meaningful for what it was, even if Zayn tried to make it more. He’s too caught up in his thoughts to do more than stare at Liam.

“Say something,” Liam pleads, his eyes looking very serious in the yellow light of the streetlamp next to their bench.

“I’d like to be friends with you too, Liam.”

“Good.”

Zayn can hear Harry’s advice on loop in his head. He’s right, he knows Harry’s right. They can’t do this without full disclosure. Zayn opens his mouth to explain to Liam, “But—” he hesitates.

“Why is there a ‘but?’”

And he loses his nerve. Instead they have other things they need to discuss as well. He can bring up being in love with Liam after they talk about the other main issue that forced Zayn to break up the band.

“I can’t be friends with you while you’re still with _her_ ,” he bites out, knowing that Liam isn’t going to like it, “I just—I can’t argue about her anymore, okay? She’s the reason why we aren’t friends anymore.”

Liam shoots him the confused puppy face, “I thought it was because I didn’t take you seriously when you came out?”

“That’s just a part of it,” Zayn agrees, “But, it’s not the entire reason. I can’t keep watching her use you for your name and your money.”

“She’s not like that,” Liam immediately says, his eyebrows drawing down low over his eyes.

“Really, Liam. Do you honestly believe that?” Zayn asks, keeping the confrontational note out of his voice. He wants Liam to really think about it, objectively. He doesn’t want Liam to just react to that tone of voice and argue because he thinks he’s supposed to. He asks him with sincerity and watches Liam struggle to think about it. When Liam settles on a decision and looks away from Zayn, down at his feet where he’s knocking them together, Zayn says, again with nothing but sincerity, “That’s what I thought.”

“So, I’m supposed to break up with my girlfriend because you said so?” His voice is wooden and Zayn flinches.

“No,” he says, and he means it, “If you want to keep wasting your time—years—on a girl that you just admitted is with you for your money, then that’s on you. I’m not going to sit around and watch you do it without saying anything.”

“Like with you and Perrie?”

He should have expected that, but it still hurts, “Fuck you, you know that was a PR relationship that management forced me into. That’s not fair, and you know it.”

Liam ducks his head and Zayn takes that as his acknowledgement that he was wrong. Liam shakes it off, and turns to look Zayn straight in the face, his eyes as earnest as Zayn’s ever seen them, “I’m sorry, you know,” he says, “For everything.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“Can we call a truce? Or like, be probationary friends? I can’t just dump Sophia right this second, anyway. I have to think about it a bit more.”

“Of course we’re friends, Liam. That’s not… that’s not going to change,” Zayn reaches up to cup Liam’s cheek, like he wants to cement this fact into Liam’s brain. Liam’s beard tickles his palm, but Zayn ignores that and hopes Liam can read the sincerity in his voice, “You still know me better than anyone, yeah? Even after all this time you’re still my favorite person in the world.”

Liam reaches a hand up to squeeze Zayn’s fingers on his cheek. “And you’re mine.”

Zayn preens under Liam’s words. There’s still a place for him in Liam’s heart. There’s still a top spot for him in Liam’s heart, snuggled in next to his parents and sisters.

Liam moves first, standing up and pulling his case of beer under his arm, “So I’ll see you next week?”

Zayn smiles and tries to hide how hard his heart is beating, “Yeah, suppose you will. When I’m accepting British Album of the Year.”

“You idiot. Maybe I’ll thank you in my speech when I win.”

“Wouldn’t that shock everyone?”

“Probably would. Fans would cream themselves.”

Zayn laughs, feeling his eyes crinkle. He watches as Liam starts to turn, “I hope you win Bestselling Single.”

This stops Liam in his tracks, “Really? Even though it’s your song?”

Zayn shrugs, still sitting comfortable on the bench under the single streetlamp. He gathers enough courage to say barely above a whisper, “It’s sort of your song too. More than just you singing it. Night, mate.”

“Night,” Liam echoes. He walks away, towards his car and something settles inside Zayn, something that was unbalanced, chaotic, is tamed within him.


	7. Chapter 7

The two days after his encounter with Liam outside Marks & Spencer’s are some of the strangest in Zayn’s recent memory. He feels a dichotomy of the Zayn from before, the Zayn that fucked everything up and stewed in his misery, and a new Zayn, a version of himself who could see peace on the horizon. This new Zayn grows larger by the hour, seeping across invisible barriers to overtake the old Zayn and as far he could tell, this is a good thing.

He spends those days with his family in Bradford, lounging on the couch with Doniya and texting stupid things to Liam about the show she’s forcing him to watch. Liam responds rapidly, like he’s waiting by his phone for Zayn’s next text and, honestly, Zayn’s thrilled. They don’t talk about anything big. They don’t mention the talk they had the other night. They stick to the silent agreement that important things needs to be discussed in person and though things aren’t quite settled yet, they can’t bear the quiet anymore. At least, Zayn knows he can’t.

Now that the door is open, Zayn doesn’t go longer than an hour outside sleep without hearing from Liam. He knows about the lumpy mattress Liam’s sleeping on at his parents’ house in Wolverhampton. Zayn, having slept on this mattress before, can attest to its lumpiness. But Zayn slept on it for a week back before he graduated to Liam’s bed and not just one night, so he makes it clear to Liam that he doesn’t get his sympathy.

“You look happy, Sunshine,” his mother says after dinner that night. She’s smiling with her crinkly eyes.

He raises his soapy hands out of the water where he’s been washing dishes and looks straight at her, “I am,” he says, and can’t help the smile that breaks out over his face, “I really, really am.”

His mum runs a hand through his hair, something no one but she and Liam are allowed to do, and kisses his cheek, “I’m so glad to hear it. When do we get to see Liam again? Can I invite him for dinner soon?”

Zayn knows better than to think his clever mum had no idea about the source of his happiness. She should just tell him what he’s feeling because she usually knows better than he does.

“Not yet, Mum,” he puts another plate into the drying rack, “it’s still early days. We’re working our friendship out.”

“Good, because with his breakup with Sophia he’s going to need you,” she says, turning around to find more dirty dishes like she didn’t just pull the rug out from under him.

Zayn drops the plate he was washing and the splash of soapy water gets suds all over his face. “What?”

She turns back around to look at him in concern, “Liam broke up with Sophia. I thought you knew. He said you knew he was going to break up with her.”

“When did you talk to him?”

“Earlier today. It’s Thursday, Zayn. We always talk on Thursdays.”

Fucking Thursdays. He forgot it was Thursday, “And he told you he broke up with Sophia?”

“Well, yeah. He said it’s not in the media yet, his press people are working on that, but he wanted to let me know himself and ask my advice about it.”

Concerned he might start to look like a complete idiot standing there with his mouth open and soap dribbling down his face, Zayn mops the closest rag over his face and turns back to the sink.

“So, he really did it? Broke up with her I mean?” Zayn hears himself ask.

Zayn’s mum takes pity on him, “Yes, he really did.”

“Huh,” Zayn says in wonder, like he can’t quite believe it. Because he can’t. He can’t really believe it, that Liam would choose him. He can’t believe that after all this time Liam would really choose his friendship over anything with Sophia, “That’s a bit mad, isn’t it?”

His mum shrugs, “I think you two have a lot to discuss, Sunshine,” she says with that mischievous gleam in her eye that all the lads swear he gets when he’s planning something. He must get that from his mother. It looks a lot cheekier than he thought.

“I guess so,” he mumbles and goes back to scrubbing the last plate, oblivious to the hint of a smile playing over his face.

Liam doesn’t mention anything about the breakup in his texts and Zayn doesn’t either, nor did he expect Liam to say anything, but he feels a new energy in their exchanges and the banter takes on a different, unreadable tone.

The Brits draw ever closer until it’s the night before and Zayn is back in London, watching telly with Niall curled up next to him on the couch. Next thing he knows he’s on the red carpet in tight trousers and a shirt so expensive that it could put someone through university.

With Louis’ voice in his head, he gives a few very short interviews while wishing he were clever like Harry, charming like Niall, or fearless like Louis. Instead, he flounders through his interviews the best he can, giving polite responses and trying not to give the cardboard answers. It’s just… it’s just that anytime he says anything it somehow comes back to bite him. He says he doesn’t like the color pink one time and the next day the press says he doesn’t support breast cancer research. Dealing with the media is like balancing on a tightrope while people throw fruit at you.

Luckily this time, no one asks about Liam and Zayn’s thankful because he doesn’t know what his face would give away if they did. He lost the undercurrent of anger that’s kept him company under his skin for the last three years, and without it he’s not sure what he would say or do if Liam was brought up. Would they figure out how he feels about Liam? Would it look as blindingly obvious as it felt?

He shakes his head as slightly as possible while walking to his seat. He’s at the same table as Harry and James Corden who are already making each other belly laugh. Zayn pulls out the chair next to Harry, drags his fingers to grasp his forearm lightly for a minute in greeting and then settles in to watch everyone else arrive.

He feels when Liam enters the room. It’s not a metaphysical thing, the hair on his neck doesn’t stand up like it did backstage at the Grammy’s, but he notices. He knows.

Everyone looks to him for a reaction to Liam entering, but he ignores them. He watches Liam out of the corner of his eye as he makes his way over to a table on the far side of the auditorium, where they’ve placed Niall and Louis as well. Under the guise of taking a sip of his water, Zayn watches Liam shake the hand of everyone at his table. That’s typical Liam. He’s probably asking about each person’s children and dog by name too, Zayn thinks fondly.

“Hey, you okay?” Harry whispers into his ear, taking a small sip of his own water. They learned all the tricks to hide in plain sight back in the day. Harry can get a clingy reporter to stop touching him with just a well-timed yawn. Zayn never quite reached that level, but then again, he never had as many clingy interviewers to fend off.

Zayn takes a deep breath. This is Harry, “Yeah, mate. I’m good.”

“Did you… you know, did you—?”

“Sorta?” He says and it comes out like a question. Harry’s eye widen with shock and excitement.

“And?” Harry asks, both still cognizant that they are surrounded by people who they shouldn’t allow to overhear this delicate information.

Zayn waggles his eyebrows, “wouldn’t you like to know?”

“I would,” Harry says, not bothering to play coy at all, “Please tell me. I’m dying to know. Louis’ dying to know. We’re all dying to know, really.”

Zayn lets himself pause a moment to feel love for his boys, he appreciates them only wanting the best. He also appreciates that they haven’t bothered him about this. Then again, he knows that they’ve dealt with him enough to know that bothering him about something usually makes him do the opposite of what they want.

“I never got the chance to, you know, actually say it,” he mutters, just loud enough for only Harry to hear, “but he broke up with Sophia the other day.”

He spots the small frown on Harry’s face.

Harry doesn’t respond and Zayn watches the small frown grow a little deeper, lines forming between those green eyes, “What?”

More celebrities settle around them and Harry fights the frown in order to give small little waves to friendly acquaintances. He winks cheekily at Ed at the next table over who mouths something about hanging out later. Harry nods at him and takes the gesture over the top with an enthusiastic thumbs up.

He then turns back to Zayn, falling back out of his Charming Harry personality, “You didn’t tell him you love him? That was literally the most important part.”

Zayn feels a bit like a chastised kid, “It didn’t make sense in the conversation to say it, Haz. But I’ll tell him.” Harry raises both eyebrows like he doesn’t quite believe him, “Tonight, okay? I’ll tell him tonight.”

“Better,” Harry whispers while the lights dim and the show begins.

 

 

The Brits are just as excruciating as the Grammy’s. At least this time he has Harry’s reassuring presence at his side. Rihanna is amazing and beyond great, but Harry knows Zayn and better yet, knows Zayn’s alter ego. So he understands Zayn’s nerves are for more than his own categories, but also for Donald K. Johnson’s, though predictably they often intersect.

Zayn mentally checks out for much of the show, only clapping when everyone else does. What if Liam can’t stand that Zayn loves him romantically? What if he resents Zayn for picking Zayn over Sophia and then hates him? What if he can’t stand the sight of him after he tells Liam he loves him? He sneaks a peek over at Liam’s side of the room. Liam is watching the host up on stage, but Louis looks right at Zayn. He looks confident as he looks over to Liam, then back to Zayn and nods his head like he’s trying to tell Zayn something.

Instead of admitting he doesn’t understand Zayn nods his head back in thanks.

The show goes on and Zayn’s fears only increase. They’re getting closer and closer to the British Single Award and Zayn’s anxiety is choking him. Even Harry’s warm hand on his thigh under the table is not helping like it used to. He’s not even sure what he’s so nervous about. He’s already gotten a Grammy for Album of the Year. That’s like, lifetime achievement territory. So why can’t his nerves chill for a minute?

Nick Grimshaw comes on stage to announce British Single and Zayn finds Harry’s hand on his thigh and squeezes the living shit out of it under the table. Harry’s eyes bulge a bit and then he uses his other hand to grip both of Zayn’s and get him to relax his hand.

Grimmy announces the nominees, including Zayn’s “Swingset Glory” as well as Liam’s “Breakdown the Door,” and Zayn smiles because as long as one of those two songs wins, he’ll be happy.

“Right, ladies and gents,” Grimmy says, “let’s open this little envelope here, and announce the winner, yeah?”

Bloody get on with it, Zayn thinks. He watches in slow motion as Grimmy fumbles with the envelope a bit to open it properly.

“And this year’s British Single Award goes to…” dramatic pause. Always with the fucking dramatic pause. Zayn rolls his eyes, completely forgetting for a moment that he’s on national television for all the world to see. Harry squeezes his hand again.

“…Mr. Liam Payne!”

Zayn sighs in relief, not knowing until this second that he wanted that song to win. One less speech to make, he thinks, watching Liam jump up and run to the stage after hugging Louis and Niall.

He claps slowly while Liam runs up to the podium, a flush on his cheeks. He gives Grimmy a very masculine handshake/back slap and smiles out at the crowd with that golden retriever puppy look he does. Zayn smiles up at him and when Liam catches his eye and winks at him, he feels his eyes crinkle up into the smile as well. His heart thuds in his chest.

Liam keeps his eyes on Zayn as he opens his mouth.

“Wow,” he begins, “Thank you so much.” He looks down at the statue sitting in his palm and throws it up into the air, catching it in a different grip.

“You know, last month I gave a thank you speech about this very song before I met the beautiful man behind it,” he says seriously, and the feeling in the room changes to match Liam’s energy, somber and somehow reverent, “I know Mr. Johnson now, I’m proud to call him a friend and when he told me the subject of this song doesn’t feel the same way as he does… well. I couldn’t believe it. He writes with such purity of love. There’s no hint of hatred for this man for not feeling the same way, no resentment. Just love and sadness.”

Zayn respectfully disagrees, but he feels himself pulled into Liam’s words until he almost believes it himself, “I guess I just want to acknowledge that love, acknowledge the kind of man who can feel _that_ every day and use it to create beauty in this world. And I think that talent is why this song won tonight. We respond to that. So thank you not just from me, but from my friend Donald K. Johnson who poured his heart into this song.”

Zayn barely hears the thunderous applause from everyone around him. He mechanically claps his hands together to avoid looking rude in the reports from tonight, but his mind… his mind replays the moment again and again. Liam thinks he loves with purity? Liam admires his love? Zayn wants to laugh at how ridiculous this all is, but he also sort of wants to cry.

He’s so lost in his thoughts that he misses all the lead up to Mastercard British Album until Ed’s onstage presenting it to him.

It takes Harry elbowing him in the ribs and a shocked, “Me?” slipping out of his mouth for the audience to give a polite laugh. Zayn pulls Harry up with him and drags him into a crushing hug, trying to dispel some of his nervous energy into his friend. Harry congratulates him in his ear and it’s only those soft words that give him the courage to get onstage and accept his award.

Nope, the lights have not gotten less blinding up onstage, Zayn thinks as he stares out into what he assumes is the audience since he can’t really see them over the brightness of these spotlights. His eyes eventually adjust while he’s politely and perfunctorily thanking the fans and his family and music/producing team behind him. As he thanks Louis for helping him get the album together he looks over at their table and Louis nods again. Zayn looks to the left of Louis and his eyes connect with Liam’s. He’s about to wrap up his short speech when Liam’s words from earlier echo in his mind. He really thinks that the songs Zayn writes are selfless. That he’s some kind of martyr for unrequited love, and that’s bullshit. So before he can wrap up what little bit of planned speech he’d prepared for _just in case_ , he crumbles up the paper before him and goes off script.

“When I dropped this album months ago, it was the truest thing I’ve ever felt. But it’s not that true anymore, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he begins, gathering the courage he needs from those brown eyes, “What Liam said about Don Johnson is true. That he loves a man beyond limits,” he keeps his eyes on Liam, begging him to understand, “But I don’t love that way. I love selfishly and jealously and those are not great ways to love someone. Take it from me, loving someone those ways makes great music, but it also makes you miserable.”

And that’s true, and it’s only occurring to Zayn right now, in this moment, on stage in front of millions of people how _true_ that is. He’s tired of being miserable and selfish and unhappy. He fucking loves Liam, that’s not going to change, but can he love Liam enough to let him be happy with whomever? Zayn thinks about forcing Liam to choose between him and Sophia and he feels a bit sick to his stomach. He made Liam choose. He was so selfish. He didn’t think of Liam’s happiness at all. It doesn’t matter that Sophia uses Liam, that she doesn’t care about him. Liam must feel something for her if he’s kept her around for so long. Liam must love her and here Zayn is coming back into his life after pushing Liam away for two years because he was hurt that Liam didn’t react the exact way he wanted to and—and Zayn’s making him choose between two people he cares for? Zayn’s blackmailing him into getting rid of the competition when Liam has made it clear that he cares a great deal for her. That there is no competition. Zayn’s not even a competitor in the battle for Liam’s heart. Zayn’s a shit friend and… this ends today. This ends now. He’s going to find Liam after this stupid show ends, and he’s going to have to tell him everything. This isn’t healthy for either of them.

He clears his throat a bit, aware that he’s had a pretty lengthy pause in his speech, “So I’m going to try to love like Liam Payne thinks Donald K. Johnson loves – patiently, kindly, and wanting only the best for that special someone,” He makes this promise to himself, to Liam, to the millions of people watching, knowing that he will have to keep this promise, that he means it more than anything in the world.

He looks to Liam who smiles encouragingly at him and Zayn sees him tap his hip—the same spot where Zayn’s black heart tattoo rests. He smiles back, never having felt more at peace than this moment, “I’ll always love you—can’t turn that off if I tried—but I won’t let it ruin us. Thank you again and have a great night.”

The reporters are relentless backstage when he goes to have his picture taken, wanting to know the identity of his “special person.” He responds as vaguely as he can and doesn’t react to anything. Time blurs and Louis finds him after the show ends backstage and bowls into him, dragging him into a tight hug. He feels Harry’s lanky arms hugging him from behind and then Niall joins to his left. Zayn basks in their love, he allows it to flow over him, well aware of how lucky he is to have met these boys, to have lived so much of his life with them. Another pair of arms joins and Zayn feels complete. He knows those arms, he knows this embrace. Those arms are his favorite place in the world.

Niall’s openly weeping and they’re all five of them giggling happily. They stay that way for longer than they should, but not as long as Zayn would have liked.

“Lads, let’s give these two some time to talk, yeah?” Louis says, dragging Harry and Niall towards the door.

“But we’re finally all together again and happy,” Niall protests, digging his heels in.

Louis smiles kindly at him, like an indulging older brother, and well, he kind of is, isn’t he? “We’ll go get some Nando’s, okay? How’d you like that?”

“And I’ll rub your shoulders, Nialler,” Harry offers. Zayn can see that Niall is milking it, but everyone is too happy to burst his bubble.

“Alrigh’ but Nando’s first. I’m starving.”

Blood black hole of a stomach, that one. Niall leads Harry out the door with Louis following. After the other two have gone on, he stops at the doorway, one hand on the doorframe, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm on it.

“I’ll have your car brought ‘round the back way, Liam.”

“Thanks, Lou,” Liam says and the lack of surprise tells Zayn that if he didn’t outright orchestrate this himself, he at least knew that Louis might have been planning something.

Zayn turns to look at him and finds Liam already staring at him. The moment breaks after what could be hours when Liam quirks his head to the backdoor. Zayn nods, following his lead.

.

.

They don’t speak, but for once it’s a comfortable silence. This silence isn’t hungry, it’s sustaining them. Zayn’s glad that Liam chose to drive, glad that he can disappear into his own thoughts for the thirty minute drive to Liam’s house, glad that for once the lava pit of rolling emotions on the inside of his skin isn’t threatening to erupt.

He sneaks a few glances at Liam as he drives, his tie loosened and his hair flying in all kinds of directions with the window down, driving with an old Usher record on like they aren’t just coming back from the Brits, two winners, two multi-millionaires in one tiny sports car, like they’re still two teenagers trying to impress each other with songs. It’s mad, really. And Zayn’s smiling and thinking and remembering all the thousands of times he’s sat in a car seat next to Liam with this exact same feeling. Like he’s on top of the world because Liam’s right there.

The feeling doesn’t disappear as Liam pulls into the drive, punches in a gate code that he doesn’t bother to hide. It’s still Zayn’s birthday.

Liam parks smoothly in the large garage and Zayn follows him into the house, still unspeaking. When they step inside, they’re greeted by an enthusiastic Loki who barks up a storm at first, and then even louder when he recognizes Zayn and the threatening tone turns to pure excitement. He throws himself onto his back and Zayn obliges him by rubbing his stomach and telling him what a good dog he is.

Really, though, Zayn almost cries because he’s _missed_ Loki and it hurt him to not be able to see him. To not think of him as _their_ dog anymore. To hear his name in a Marvel movie and not immediately think of him in Liam’s huge house, belly up on the bed between Zayn and Liam on a hang-out session turned into a sleepover. 

After Loki slobbers all over him, Liam meets him in the living room, a beer in each hand. He thrusts one into Zayn’s hand and then sits down on the couch. Zayn doesn’t sit. He doesn’t think he can stand either, though. He cracks open his bottle. It’s the same brand he saw Liam buy at the store the other night. Something about that makes Zayn’s heart a little warmer.

“I broke up with Sophia.”

Zayn gulps a mouthful of beer, leaning back until he’s sitting on the arm of the couch across from Liam, “I heard.”

“You did?” He seems genuinely surprised.

“Me mum told me.”

Liam nods, like he shouldn’t have been surprised, “Trisha, of course.”

Zayn’s not sure how to take that response. His mum wouldn’t have told Zayn if she thought it was a secret. She’s just not that type of person, “Are you—“ he begins, cutting himself off when he realizes he’s not really sure what he means to say.

“Are you alright with it?” He comes up with, and that’s not exactly it, but it’s out there now.

“I’m not alright with a lot of things, Zaynie,” Liam says, and well, Zayn _definitely_ doesn’t know how to take that.

“What do you mean?”

Liam looks long into his eyes with an earnestness that Zayn used to think only monks and reverends could pull off. The look in his eyes and the way his lips move lull Zayn into an almost hypnotic state, “I’m not alright with how long I let that relationship go on. I’m not alright with how I let you walk out of my life. And I’m not alright with how long it took me to realize that it’s not normal to feel like this for your best mate,” His eyes laser beam into Zayn’s and he honestly can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t even think straight.

“Because here’s the thing,” Liam says when Zayn’s unable to respond, “After our last conversation, I did a lot of thinking. Like, a lot. In between texting you, all I did was think. Why did I waste so much time with Sophia? I knew in the bottom of my heart that she didn’t really care for me like a loving partner should. You told me that. My parents tried to tell me that. I think even Niall tried to tell me once or twice in his own awkward way. Everyone saw it. Why did I let it go on so long? Why was it so important to me that I have Sophia?”

Liam takes a deep sip from the bottle of his full beer, and Zayn’s transfixed—he can’t take his eyes off where Liam’s lips meet the glass, he’s on the edge of his seat, waiting for those lips to keep going. The moment seems tenable, like the wrong move on Zayn’s part will break the moment and Liam won’t jump off the cliff they both see him heading towards.

After a big swallow, he puts the bottle on the table to his left and Liam stands, just to sit on the arm of the couch opposite Zayn so that they are directly across from each other. He continues, unable to look at Zayn now, like he needs to get this out and won’t be able to if he can see Zayn hearing him, “I wanted to have my girlfriend that I thought I loved and carry on not thinking about things too deeply because you’re supposed to love your girlfriend, right? So I thought I did love her and as long as she was there I could throw off the things I felt for you as you just being my best mate. Because I had a girlfriend, so I was straight.”

Zayn feels like he’s been holding his breath so long that his chest is starting to ache. Finally he drags in a gasping breath. Liam feels—what?

“And… you’re not straight?” he asks cautiously, knowing what he heard but not trusting it for now.

Liam looks up finally, meeting Zayn’s gaze and slowly shakes his head, “No, I uh. I’m into blokes too. Definitely into blokes.”

“You figured this out, when exactly?” Zayn’s trying to work this out furiously in his head, trying to keep up with the revelation.

“Well a big clue was how much I liked having your cock in my mouth. Cheers, mate.”

Zayn chokes out a laugh, “Anytime, really,” He means it.

Liam smiles cheekily at him, his cheeks a tinge pink. “But really though,” he ventures again, pulling them back on topic, “I think those feelings have always been there, you know? I just didn’t know what they were until recently. I couldn’t put a proper name to it.”

Zayn nods, knowing the confusion of having more than brotherly feelings for your best mate. Everyone gets there at a different speed. But he can’t risk it. Liam can allude all he wants. He can imply and throw shade, but Zayn needs to _hear it_. He needs to hear it like he needs to breathe and right now his breaths are coming in short supply.

“And,” Zayn says through the lump in his throat, his hands grasping and clenching in his lap, “what exactly are those feelings, Leeyum?”

Liam looks at him in the way he did when they would have entire conversations between blinks. “You know,” he says almost desperately, and yeah, right now Zayn can guess, but he needs to _know_.

“Do I?” Zayn whispers, starting to feel the pain from his fingernails pushing into his palms over and over again.

“I think you do,” Liam says and suddenly their faces are inches apart and Zayn can see Liam’s beard in minute detail and it’s even manlier than he remembers it.

 “I don’t think we should assume what each other know anymore,” Zayn says, hearing Harry’s voice in that Houston hotel room telling him he needs to tell Liam the truth, “You know what they say about assumptions.”

Liam’s face grows ever nearer and what little breath Zayn had managed to corral into his lungs dispels all at once and then his eyes are so close to Liam’s that he’s going a bit cross-eyed.

“Something important, I’m sure,” Liam whispers practically into Zayn’s mouth, “but to be honest, I’m having a bit of trouble thinking clearly, mate.”

Zayn smells pure Liam and he’s transported back to seventeen when all was right with Liam by his side and the world was a grand adventure, before he grew feelings and before those feelings grew bitter. Now the scent just serves to calm him down enough to ask, “And what would clear your head?”

Liam pecks his lips with his own so very, very softly that Zayn almost faints dead away, “I’ve got a fever,” Liam says across the millimeters separating their mouths, “and the only prescription—“

Zayn can’t help that his eyes roll into his head—so many times he’s heard this joke and— “the only cure is you,” he whispers and—Oh! Liam’s arms come around his skinny hips, pulling him off the arm of the sofa, and then he’s standing in Liam’s embrace with Liam’s beyond gorgeous smile in front of him, his lips stretched to the max with pure joy and Zayn can’t help it, he reaches between them and his lips find Liam’s smiling mouth and then everything stills.

His hands snake around to Liam’s shoulders, feeling the larger-than-he-remembers muscles bunch under his hands before they drift lower, to his hips to pull Liam closer to him. There’s no place he’d rather be, nowhere on the planet he would rather be at this exact second than where he is—huddled in between Liam’s large arms, with Liam’s lips searing into his own.

Zayn moves into it, just like at the Grammy’s, they fall seamlessly into a rhythm, but this time there’s no edge, there’s no war brimming in the gulf between them because there is no gulf. There’s just Liam and Zayn, Europe and Aisa, two continents, but one land mass, and this unbreakable bond between them that changes the course of their lives.

Zayn meets Liam’s tongue and a wave of heat shoots down his spine to land above his pelvis. Those big bear hands travel up from Zayn’s hips to his cheeks and Liam pulls back to look at Zayn like he created the universe or at least had some small part in it. Liam looks at him like he’s a miracle and impossible and every good thing to ever exist. And then he smiles until his eyes crinkle and Zayn breaks.

“Liam,” he says because now he can’t not say it, he can’t fight it back. You can’t hold a wave in your hand, and he can’t keep these feelings in any longer, “Liam, I—“

“Zayn,” Liam says, closing the gap again to place tender kisses on his eye lids, his hands still cradling Zayn’s head like it might roll off at any point in time.

“Liam, if you can’t say it, then I have to—“ Liam kisses the corner of his mouth and Zayn feels a jolt straight down to his dick, “I have to say it, Leeyum.”

“Then say it already, it doesn’t change anything,” Liam moves his treacherous mouth to Zayn’s neck and, yeah there’ll probably be a bruise there tomorrow and Zayn practically _preens_ he’s so excited.

“It’ll change everything,” Zayn manages to get out, very distracted by Liam’s sinful mouth.

He feels a sharp bite on his collarbone followed by a soothing tongue, “I mean it won’t change how I feel about you.”

 “You still haven’t told me—“ He groans when Liam’s tongue finds a particularly sensitive spot on his neck, right up under his ear, “You still haven’t told me what that is,” he manages to get this last sentence out, and really that’s a feat to be proud of with how Liam is working him up.

“Zaynie,” Liam says, pulling off of his neck to look him square in the eye, “If it’s not obvious by now, I’m—“

“I love you!” Zayn blurts and Liam freezes.

“I’m sorry,” Zayn says, trying really really hard not to panic and mostly failing, “I just…” He trails off, not sure which of the million things he’s trying to apologize for.

And then Liam’s frozen face morphs into a grin with a hint of mischievousness that he learned from one Louis Tomlinson. “What’s that look for?” Zayn whispers, trying not to show that his heart is two milliseconds from exploding in between them.

“I’m in love with you too, Zee,” He presses a gentle kiss to Zayn’s lips again while the shock starts to wear off, “So, so in love with you. I can’t believe I didn’t see it for what it was.”

Zayn’s heart finally starts beating again after the stasis it’d been in for three years. He allows himself to show the love on his face, he’s not hiding anymore. There’s nothing to keep hidden away from the public, it’s just them here, just their love cocooning them right now. Zayn’s entire world is Liam’s arms and Liam’s lips, and Liam loves him.

“If it’s not clear,” Liam says, his mouth brushing kisses onto Zayn’s hairline, “I want to be with you. I never want to leave your side. I want you to be my partner in life, my best mate, and my lover. I think you need to hear it, so I’ll say it as many times as you want,” his beard tickles Zayn’s face and if Liam keeps going with these words, Zayn’s going to have to see his stance on crying first hand. “You’re _it_. You’re my person. Jaan.”

Zayn’s head perks up, “Where’d you hear that?” he asks curiously. That’s not a term the average white bloke knows.

“Your dad told me what it means.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“When I heard him call your mom that one time. I asked him what it meant and he told me ‘my life’ and then he told me that one day I’d get it,” Liam places another one of those achingly soft kisses onto Zayn’s parted mouth, “Seems like he was right.”

“Well, I’ll be happy to hear you tell him he’s right, as long as you don’t tell him about this next part.”

Liam’s puppy eyes shrink in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I’ll explain in the bedroom,” Zayn grabs Liam’s hand and drags him to the stairs and down the hall to the master bedroom.

They would not be speaking of this part when they call their parents later to tell them they’re together now.

.

.

A Couple Weeks Later:

“So, Liam,” says Ellen Degeneres after she’s properly welcomed Liam onto her sound stage, with all the dancing and loud music that entails, “how are you doing after your big wins this award season? Two Grammys and a Brit award if I’m not mistaken.”

The audience applauds, and Zayn, watching from backstage, feels a drop of pride roll down his spine when she mentions Liam’s achievements.

Liam waits for the applause to die down, throwing up his hands to them like he’s thanking them, the natural charmer that he is, “It feels great, Ellen, truly. It’s great to have not only the fans behind me, but my peers within the industry as well, you know?”

“Yeah,” Ellen agrees.

“But I didn’t do it all on my own,” Liam continues and Zayn’s getting anxious because he knows where this is going.

“You mentioned in your Brits speech that you finally met Donald K. Johnson,” Ellen says, “What was that like? Did you get on right away? There’s so much mystery surrounding him, that we’re dying to know.”

There really has been a lot of intrigue about Zayn’s alter ego over the years, but never so much as in the last couple weeks. The rush to figure out Donald K. Johnson’s identity reached a fever pitch, and everybody from Jimmy Fallon to Kelley Osbourne has speculated on who he may be.

“He’s an amazing guy,” Liam says with a fond look on his face, “So beyond talented and absolutely beautiful on the inside and the outside.”

“So he’s not a fifty-something with a beer belly and a bald spot,” Ellen asks, and the audience titters, “Because that’s what I’ve been thinking. Otherwise, why wouldn’t he be out in the open?”

“He has a couple reasons why he’s been in the dark,” Liam pretends to think about something, and Zayn can read the mischievousness like a book. It’s the same look he gets when he and Louis are up to something. It’s the same look he gets during on-stage water fights. Zayn low-key lives for that look. All Liam’s looks really. It’s a bit sad how gone on him he is.

The charade continues, “Would you want to hear it from him, Ellen?” Liam looks over to where he knows Zayn is waiting and calls out, “Mr. Johnson, would you like to come defend yourself? These people think you might be hideous!”

Zayn rolls his eyes, swallows the knot of doubt in his throat, and strolls onstage toward Liam.

It starts out with polite applause, and then wham! Once they recognize him, the hysteria begins. The applauses reaches a fever pitch, Zayn looks around at those faces, and they’re all on their feet. Standing ovation. There are several girls in the front row with tears running down their faces, full on ugly crying. Sobbing. Zayn makes sure to smile at them directly.

Zayn then looks over at Liam, his world, and everything blurs except _him_. Liam’s eye contact goes straight to his heart. He reads the pride in Liam’s gaze, the love, the appreciation. He knows he’s worshipped with Liam.

When he reaches Liam, he remembers he has to greet Ellen. He recovers quickly, gives her a peck on the cheek and doesn’t quite catch what she’s saying to the audience. He shrugs when he doesn’t see a second chair, and plops down on the arm of Liam’s chair, Liam’s arm coming around his waist to steady him.

It still takes another full two minutes for the audience to calm down. When they finally do, Ellen takes control of the conversation again, but Zayn’s focused more on the little circles Liam is drawing onto his side.

“Wow,” Ellen says, and there’s another round of screaming, “Just wow,” She looks out at the audience and then back over at Zayn and Liam like she’s asking them to pull the other one.

“We like to joke on this show that I never get surprised, but you two did it! You certainly did it.” Liam hides his smile into Zayn’s shoulder and Zayn knows he probably looks smug. Rightfully so.

“So you _were_ surprised then,” Zayn asks playfully.

“Definitely!” She says, “and now I have so many questions. How did you, how did you get into this? Where did Donald K. Johnson come from? What was wrong with Zayn Malik that you didn’t write under that name?”

Zayn smiles, “Well, Ellen, it all started when I fell in love with Liam…”

It takes another commercial break to get the audience under control.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is done. Thanks for hanging around. I went with Loki because it was easier. I think when I started this fic there was no Watson, so I went with what I knew.
> 
> I hope you liked it. It's nice to have this finished and up and one less thing for me to stress about.
> 
> Have a great day!


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